NPD: June Software Sales Up 22%, Led By Mario Party 8

The NPD Group has released its U.S. video game industry sales for June, showing game sales up 22 percent to $543 million, with Wii exclusive Mario Party 8 leading all-format sales. According to NPD, total industry sales were up 31 percent to $1.1 billion for the month, with hardware sales up 34 percent to $399 million, as the DS again leads all other hardware formats with an impressive 562,000 handhelds sold. All consoles saw a rise in sales with month, with Wii leading at 381,800 units, followed by the Xbox 360's 198,400, and PS3's rise from 82,000 last month to 98,500. The PSP also rose to 290,100 units sold. No information was given by NPD this month on PlayStation 2 or GameBoy Advance hardware. Nintendo dominated the top ten monthly software charts with six out of 10 best-selling titles made for the Wii or the DS, led by first party Wii exclusive Mario Party 8, with 426,200 copies sold. Despite five PlayStation 2 titles appearing in the top 20, no PlayStation 3 titles managed to rank during the month. The top ten by amount of copies sold for June 2007 in the U.S. is as follows: 1. Mario Party 8 - Wii (Nintendo) - 426,200 units 2. Wii Play - Wii (Nintendo) - 293,200 units 3. Pokemon Diamond - DS (Nintendo) - 288,400 units 4. Pokemon Pearl - DS (Nintendo) - 214,700 units 5. Forza Motorsport 2 - Xbox 360 (Microsoft) - 197,400 units 6. Guitar Hero II - PS2 (Activision) - 197,350 units 7. Guitar Hero II - Xbox 360 (Activision) - 177,600 units 8. Pokemon Battle Revolution - Wii (Nintendo) - 157,900 units 9. Resident Evil 4 - Wii (Capcom) 10. The Darkness - Xbox 360 (Take Two) Note: No units sold numbers were supplied for top ten numbers 9 and 10. The group has also published top 10 software sales performers for the first half of 2007, which is broken down as follows: 1. Pokemon Diamond - DS (Nintendo) 2. Wii Play - Wii (Nintendo) 3. Pokemon Pearl - DS (Nintendo) 4. God of War 2 - PS2 (Sony) 5. Guitar Hero II - PS2 (Activision) 6. Guitar Hero II - Xbox 360 (Activision) 7. Mario Party 8 - Wii (Nintendo) 8. Crackdown - Xbox 360 (Microsoft) 9. Diddy Kong Racing - DS (Nintendo) 10. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Wii (Nintendo) Further analyst analysis on the NPD charts is expected early tomorrow, and Gamasutra will link to the in-depth commentary as it arrives. [UPDATE: NPD has sent out corrected numbers for the PSP, which sold 290,100 units in June, rather than the 230,100 first given.]