According to figures released by NPD Group late on Thursday, game console market was up in July with Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3 sales skyrocketing as Microsoft Corp. suffered from the scandal with malfunction Xbox 360 game consoles.

Apparently, Nintendo Wii still has space for growth, as it managed to set a six-months’ record last month with about 425 thousand game consoles sold through in the United States. Meanwhile, following the price-cut on the PlayStation 3 60GB, the latest game machine by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. was preferred by 159 thousand of gamers in the U.S., according to figures by NPD. Due to the scandal with faulty game consoles, fewer people acquired Microsoft Xbox 360 in July compared to June, however, the X360 is still ahead of the PS3 with 170 thousand units sold through.

In general, the market of game consoles was up 3% sequentially in July with both PlayStation 3 and Wii enjoying sales increase, whereas Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 became less popular on the U.S. market.

Surprisingly, the market of portable game consoles shrank in July by about 27% to approximately 706 thousand of units. Nintendo sustains its leadership in the field with 405 thousand of Nintendo DS sold through and 87 thousand of Game Boy Advance bought by gamers across the USA. Sales of Sony PlayStation Portable also declined to 214 thousand of devices.

Earlier this week it was reported that lifetime to date sales of Nintendo Wii surpassed those of Microsoft Xbox 360. While the main reason for that is Nintendo’s success in Japan and Microsoft’s failure to make the Xbox 360 popular in the country of the rising sun, if Wii continues to be more popular than the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 combined in the U.S. and Europe, then soon the least powerful new-generation console will find itself on the throne even in these regions, where Microsoft and Sony have historically been very strong.