The NPD Group's hardware and software numbers for the month of June has been released, representing sales for the United States in the five week period of June 1st to July 5th.

This month, there are three notable happenings:

• Wii overtakes 360 in the United States in Lifetime to Date sales, with 666.7k units sold vs. 219.8k units sold for the 360, bring the Wii's total to 10.9 million units sold in the United States in its 20 months of release.
• Metal Gear Solid 4, being the only major release this month, is the top selling game, bumping PlayStation 3 sales up also.
• The DS is the top seller this month with a whopping 783k units sold, surpassing 20 million lifetime to date in the US.

Hardware Numbers:
NDS: 783k
WII: 666.7k
PS3: 405.5k
PSP: 337.4k
360: 219.8k

2008 Year-to-date in the US:
WII - 3,482,000
NDS - 3,187,000
PS3 - 1,608,000
PSP - 1,482,000
360 - 1,354,000

2008 Lifetime-to-Date in the US:
NDS: 20,777,300
PSP: 11,994,500
WII: 10,852,948
360: 10,494,466
PS3: 4,851,677

The top ten software went as follows:
01. PS3 Metal Gear Solid 4 - Konami - 6/08 - 774.6K
02. NDS Guitar Hero On Tour - Activision - 6/08 - 422.3K
03. 360 Ninja Gaiden II - Microsoft - 6/08 - 372.7K
04. WII Fit with Balance Board - NOA - 5/08 - 372.7K
05. WII Play with Remote - NOA - 2/07 - 359.1K
06. 360 Battlefield: Bad Company - EA - 6/08 - 346.8K
07. WII Mario Kart with Wheel - NOA - 4/08 - 322.4K
08. WII LEGO Indiana Jones - LucasArts - 6/08 - 294.5K
09. NDS LEGO Indiana Jones - LucasArts - 6/08 - 267.8K
10. PS2 LEGO Indiana Jones - LucasArts - 6/08 - 260.3K

Note in the case for Metal Gear Solid 4 and Guitar Hero: On Tour, this does not factor in the sales for bundles. That falls under the hardware numbers.

Some software US LTDs:
(WII) Wii Fit: 1.06m
(WII) Wii Play: 6.12m
(WII) Mario Kart Wii: 2.23m

Things to point out:

• Metal Gear Solid 4 had a strong debut, bringing the PS3 up a couple hundred thousand from last month. Factoring in bundle sales, MGS4 could potentially and in all likelihood has sold over a million this month.
• Guitar Hero: On Tour is the top selling DS game this month, and is most likely the primary reason for the large DS numbers, due to the game being bundled with the hardware on release.
• Wii Fit, Wii Play, and Mario Kart Wii still remain strong. Wii Fit has now passed a million LTD in the United States. Supply issues currently plague both it and Mario Kart Wii.
• Grand Theft Auto IV, after being both #1 (360) and #4 (PS3) last month, is nowhere to be seen in the top ten this month.
• LEGO Indiana Jones is available at retail for all five of the reported consoles and the PlayStation 2; the highest-selling SKU this time around is the Wii version, joining Guitar Hero III in this regard.
• Speaking of Guitar Hero III, this is the first month in a while where not one of the many versions of the game can be seen in the top ten.
• Six out of the top ten are on Nintendo hardware, 4 for Wii, 2 for DS.

Things to look for next month:

• Will Metal Gear Solid 4 keep its opening month numbers, or will it prove to be incredibly frontloaded, like previous games in the series and what has happened in Japan?
• Will this prove to be only a spike for the PS3?

[May 2008 NPD]