August's console and game sales figures for the United States have been released from the NPD Group and, once again, the same trends have prevailed. The Xbox 360 is performing adequately; Sony is lagging far behind; and the Wii continues to dominate the entire industry.
According to NPD, the industry-leading Wii gained momentum in August with a reported 403,600 sold. Amazingly, the Nintendo DS also did well, with sales reaching 383,200 units.
Nintendo's software is also performing well, with Wii Play taking the number five slot in software sales, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption taking the sixth. Mario Strikers: Charged held on to the seventh slot, while Mario Part 8 took the ninth.
Xbox continues to lag behind Nintendo
Although Microsoft probably has the best selection of games, sales continued to lag behind those of Nintendo. That said, the company sold 276,700 Xbox 360 units in August and reached a lifetime installed base of 6.3 million units.
More importantly, August also marked the first time Sony has not played host to the most-popular Madden game, as the Xbox 360 version eclipsed everything else with 896,600 sold last month. BioShock - another popular Xbox 360 game - finished third in overall software sales.
August saw sales of the PlayStation 2 continue to eclipse the PlayStation 3. According to NPD, Sony sold 202,000 PS2s, while only 151,200 PlayStation Portables and 130,600 PlayStation 3s left the shelves.
All in all, it looks like Sony may be in for a rude awakening.
