3DS sales spike in the UK, pushes ahead of PS3 and 360

3DS is now outselling PS3 and 360 week-by-week, Nintendo has told MCV.

The spike in hardware sales has been driven by a number of hit titles including most recently Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

The platform holder had eight 3DS titles in the UK individual formats Top 40, and it is the only console to sell more games (so far) this year compared with the year before.

"Software sells hardware," Nintendo UK’s head of consumer marketing James Honeywell.

"You must have heard that from us a lot. And the same can be said for Wii U as we move into peak season. With such a strong line-up of titles that are so critically acclaimed, it is just a perfect storm. It has made it the format of the moment.

"Sometimes 3DS, or handheld in general, suffers because people tend to focus on the home console market. But 3DS is really doing the numbers right now."

You can read more about the rise of 3DS in next week’s MCV magazine.

Nintendo’s data is based on GfK Chart-Track reports.