Hot off the release of this month's NPD Group report on hardware and software sales, Nintendo and Sony have made public their reactions on their sales figures. Both were pleased with what they accomplished in June and promised more good things to come.

Of the two, Sony experienced more growth this month as it exceeded sales expectations sharply with the launch of one of its marquee exclusives. In a press release, Sony wrote:

PlayStation 3 (PS3), led by the launch of the highly anticipated  Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3 bundle, continued to experience tremendous momentum in June 2008, selling 405,488 hardware units – 84 percent higher than Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (according to NPD June 2008 sales data). PS3 year-over-year hardware sales growth exceeded 311 percent in June, with month-over-month growth exceeding 94 percent.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, exclusively for PS3, was the best-selling title on any platform in June 2008, with 774,647 units sold. More than 2.4 million software units were sold for PS3 in June, representing an increase of more than 300 percent from this time last year. (Software totals do not include software units sold as part of the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3 retail bundle).

Sony also relished the more than 300,000 units that the PSP handheld sold. The company credited God of War: Chains of Olympus for the said feat.

And while Sony is certainly licking its sales chops, Nintendo is the one still laughing the loudest at this point. The company is blazing the trail in the gaming business with monster sales from its handheld-console combo. The Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo DS racked up 783,000  and 666,700 units respectively and Nintendo had this to say about it:

Wii was created with the goal of expanding the gaming universe through its intuitive motion-sensing controller. As we have demonstrated this week during the E3 Media & Business Summit, Wii continues to pioneer new ways for people to interact with their video games and with one another.

Microsoft has so far not issued a statement about the June NPD results. We'll keep you posted for word from them when it comes.

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Related articles:

• NPD Group releases June 2008 results
• Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft announce their NPD achievements for May 2008
• Metal Gear Solid 4 exceeds one million in sales for first week in Europe
• Chart-Track: Metal Gear Solid 4 didn't help much with UK PS3 sales