--- description: Retail tracker NPD says June marked another up month for video games, led by sales of Sony's PlayStation 4 and Mario Kart 8 for Nintendo's Wii U. title: PS4 Sweeps Junes Console Sales, Mario Kart 8 Resuscitates Wii U image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfefbdc398026cfaf/69868b41e53aba159a4d2207/playstation-4-xbox-one.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Business](/section/business/) ## Business Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Tech](/tag/time-section-tech/) ## Tech Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # PlayStation 4 Sweeps June Game Sales, While Mario Kart 8 Resuscitates the Wii U by [Matt Peckham](/author/matt-peckham/) ## Matt Peckham Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jul 18, 2014 2:02 PM CUT  Sony's PlayStation 4 (upper-left) and Microsoft's Xbox One (lower-right). Sony's PlayStation 4 (upper-left) and Microsoft's Xbox One (lower-right).Sony, Microsoft by [Matt Peckham](/author/matt-peckham/) ## Matt Peckham Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jul 18, 2014 2:02 PM CUT You could argue that now we know why Microsoft sent out that bolt-from-the-blue [Xbox One sales claim](http://time.com/3001271/microsoft-xbox-one-kinect-sales/ "undefined") half a day before NPD’s June sales figures arrived: it turns out Sony’s PlayStation 4 was the top selling console for June 2014, while Nintendo’s Wii U snatched the top selling single game SKU with _Mario Kart 8_. Let’s start with overall industry sales, which saw something of a spring banquet when [May 2014 came along](http://time.com/2889466/ps4-wins-may-xbox-sales/ "undefined") and year-on-year retail hardware, software and accessories sales soared by 52 percent. June 2014 saw further year-on-year growth across retail hardware, software and accessories categories by 24 percent over June 2013\. Once again, the key factor was hardware sales growth of 106 percent (in May, by comparison, hardware growth was 95 percent year-on-year), offsetting declines in portable hardware sales. As usual, we don’t have unit sales specifics, but Sony claimed victory for next-gen software sales in an email, writing that the PS4 “\[led\] two of the top three titles” (_Watch Dogs_, _FIFA 14_) and was first in unit sales “for the sixth consecutive month.” Nintendo, for its part, claimed _Mario Kart 8_ ([reviewed here](http://time.com/97022/mario-kart-8-review/ "undefined")) was June’s top-selling game and gave us a few rare figures: 470,000 physical and digital units sold in June, bring the total to more than 885,000 units sold (in the U.S. alone) in the game’s first five weeks. Nintendo says June 2014 Wii U sales are up 233 percent over June 2013, while Wii U software sales are up 373 percent for the same period. I’d list NPD’s physical software sales, but at this point it’s getting too confusing: Watch Dogs was the top-seller (over _Mario Kart 8_) across all platforms if you ignore digital sales, but as noted above, Nintendo says Mario Kart 8 was the top-selling game once you factor in digital sales. (If I were NPD, I’d either figure out how to fold accurate digital sales into the rankings, or stop publishing the physical software sales chart entirely.) While NPD says portable sales declined year-on-year, Nintendo notes that June 2014 3DS sales were up over the prior month by more than 55 percent, driven in part by sales of _Tomodachi Life_ (175,000 digital and physical copies sold). We’re now well into an extended up-trend, too: NPD says nine of the last 10 months saw year-on-year growth, thanks primarily to the new console launches last November, but NPD notes that growth trend started with software sales in September and October 2013 (in other words, [_Grand Theft Auto V_](http://techland.time.com/2013/09/16/review-grand-theft-auto-v-everything-rockstars-learned-about-open-world-design-refined/ "undefined") — still listing in NPD’s top 10 chart for June 2014 software sales, incidentally). What’s next: July 2014’s going to look pretty sleepy, sales-wise, and we’ll probably see declines across the board, though the _Destiny_ beta that kicked off on PS4 and PS3 yesterday, adding Xbox One and Xbox 360 next week, could bolster hardware sales. _The Last of Us_ for PS4 should do reasonably well, but it doesn’t launch until July 29\. August is pretty quiet until _Diablo 3_ (for PS4 and Xbox One) comes along on August 19, followed by the latest _Madden NFL_ on August 26. But it’s September everyone’s waiting for: Assuming _Destiny_ and _The Sims 4_ don’t suck, those two alone could well set sales records. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3004621/playstation-xbox-mario-kart-wii/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3004621/playstation-xbox-mario-kart-wii/"},"headline":"PlayStation 4 Sweeps June Game Sales, While Mario Kart 8 Resuscitates the Wii U","datePublished":"2014-07-18T14:02:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:02:48.366Z","description":"Retail tracker NPD says June marked another up month for video games, led by sales of Sony's PlayStation 4 and Mario Kart 8 for Nintendo's Wii U.","url":"https://time.com/3004621/playstation-xbox-mario-kart-wii/","keywords":["Tech","Video Games","sales","Game consoles","Sony","PlayStation 4","xbox One","Nintendo","Microsoft","Wii U","3ds"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfefbdc398026cfaf/69868b41e53aba159a4d2207/playstation-4-xbox-one.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Matt Peckham","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/matt-peckham/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfefbdc398026cfaf/69868b41e53aba159a4d2207/playstation-4-xbox-one.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"playstation-4-xbox-one","caption":"Sony's PlayStation 4 (upper-left) and Microsoft's Xbox One (lower-right).","creditText":"Sony, Microsoft","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3004621/playstation-xbox-mario-kart-wii/","name":"PlayStation 4 Sweeps June Game Sales, While Mario Kart 8 Resuscitates the Wii U"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Project Morpheus & Eye Tracking: Sony's Vision of the Future","description":"PLayStation's R&D arm Magic Lab is dreaming up Oculus' competition: Project Morpheus. But that's not all they're creating.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/qv5WOeoX/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-07-07T17:05:33.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qv5WOeoX.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3004621/playstation-xbox-mario-kart-wii/","duration":"PT3M2S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3004621/playstation-xbox-mario-kart-wii/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```