Nintendo 3DS Tops US June Hardware Chart

Nintendo 3DS is crowned leader in North America for June with impressive sales for both the hardware and software.

The latest NPD figures confirmed that Nintendo 3DS excelled during last month, selling 225,000 units - far beyond the Xbox 360, which took second place with 140,000 units sold. According to a Nintendo statement, software sales for the 3DS were up 105% compared to this time last year with nearly 3.6 million first-party games sold (physical/digital combined) - an increase of 85%.

The reason for the success is, in part, due to Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which sold 505,000 units with a healthy 20% of this figure purchased digitally through the Nintendo eShop. New Leaf was the second bestseller of the month, just pipped to the post by The Last of Us for PS3.

The Last of Us was one of our Beyond the Cube titles to look out for this year.

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon sold almost 115,000 combined units during June, bringing life-time sales for the quirky plumber brother's horror adventure to an impressive 750,000.

Nintendo refused to comment on the Wii U situation, however, but expects improvement with the release of Pikmin 3 next month.