It looks like Microsoft’s victory at the NPD this month came with an asterisk- Nintendo are now confirming that the 3DS was in fact the highest selling system at retail in North America in July. This still makes the Xbox One the winner as far as home consoles are concerned- but Nintendo took the overall honors, without any qualifiers to their success.
The Nintendo 3DS ended up seeing an 80% growth year on year, which is staggering considering that the system is now in its sixth year on the market. This kind of performance for the 3DS can probably be attributed to there being relatively fewer releases on consoles in July (the 3DS at least got Monster Hunter Generations), as well as the mania around Pokemon GO, which probably saw lapsed fans looking to get into the series again.
This also marks the first month since February last year that Nintendo hardware led the NPD- then, too, the 3DS ended up on top, thanks to the launch of the New Nintendo 3DS system, as well as the launches of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. On the whole, it indicates there is still demand for Nintendo hardware, which can only mean good news for them as they move into the impending launch of the Nintendo NX.