Nintendo 3DS continued to build momentum in 2013 and finished as the best-selling video game system in the U.S. for the third consecutive month. A strong second month for Animal Crossing: New Leaf helped sales of Nintendo 3DS hardware and software increase by 14 and 45 percent, respectively, over the same time frame last year.

Highlights for the month include:

• Animal Crossing: New Leaf sold more than 150,000 combined physical and digital units in its second month on the market, bringing its lifetime total to more than 660,000 combined units.
• The lifetime total for Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon for Nintendo 3DS surpassed 820,000 combined physical and digital units.
• New Super Mario Bros. U for Wii U surpassed 830,000 lifetime sales of combined physical and digital units.
• EarthBound launched July 18 for the Virtual Console service on the Nintendo eShop for Wii U and is off to a great start. Only two eShop titles, New Super Luigi U and Pikmin 3, generated…