Report: U.S. Game Sales Up 53% in June to $1.69 Billion

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 18, 2008 - 8:17am.

Port Washington, N.Y. - U.S. video game sales were up 53% in June from a year ago, to $1.69 billion, and although Sony (NYSE: SNE) got a major bump in sales via the top-selling, PlayStation 3-exclusive "Metal Gear Solid 4," Nintendo once again led with sales of 666,000 Wii consoles during the month, according to sales data compiled by market research firm NPD Group. Konami's "Metal Gear Solid 4" led overall with sales of 775,000 units, helping spike PlayStation 3 sales by 94% month-over-month to 405,000 units; Microsoft's (NASD: MSFT) Xbox 360 sold 219,800 units in June.

NPD said U.S. game industry sales to date this year total $8.3 billion, up 36% from the same period a year ago.

"Even if growth slows over the back half of 2008, the industry is poised to achieve record-breaking revenues of over $22B for the year," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

Nintendo noted that NPD data shows that its Wii has now surpassed the Xbox 360 to become the top-selling game console in the U.S., having sold nearly 10.9 million units since its launch in November 2006.

The Nintendo DS also continued its strong performance last month, leading all hardware with sales of 783,000 units.

Nintendo game software also captured four of the top ten sales slots during the month, while LucasArts' "Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure," was the top-selling title across all platforms, moving 1.1 million units.