September NPD: Xbox 360 takes the lead, Halo 3 to thank

Though August was an unseasonably successful month for video games, we all saw September coming. Despite being released at the tail end of the month, Microsoft's Halo 3 juggernaut walked right up to the reigning NPD champ and rifle-butted it from behind. The Xbox 360 console jumped up two places with sales of over half a million units, nearly twice as many as in August. Total industry sales for the month: a staggering $1.36 billion thanks in large part to the efforts of Mr. Chief; hardware sales alone rose 188% to $418.6 million.

• Microsoft Xbox 360: 527.8K (6.8 million total)
• Nintendo Wii: 501K (4.5 million total)
  
• Nintendo DS: 495.8K (13.2 million total)
• Sony PlayStation 2: 215K (39.3 million total)
  
• Sony PSP: 284.5K (8.6 million total)
  
• Sony PlayStation 3: 119.4K (1.87 million total)

On the software side, Halo 3 takes a dominant first place lead, single-handedly raising the console software sales for the month 64% to $550.5 million. (Remember $170 million of that was Halo 3's first day of sales; the title sold some 3.3 million units within the NPD's reporting period.)

Xbox 360 remains the most dominant platform in the top 10, selling four titles, including newcomer to the list Skate as well as last month's big 360 performers Madden and BioShock. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption dropped from sixth place to seventh, maintaining its status as the largest Wii release for the month. Sony's platforms didn't fare as well, with no PSP games making the cut, and only one PlayStation 3 game – the well received Heavenly Sword – coming in at 10th place.

1. Halo 3 (all three SKUs - Xbox 360) – 3.3 million
2. Wii Play w/ remote (Wii) – 282K
3. Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS) – 224K
4. Madden NFL 08 (PS2) – 205K
5. Skate (Xbox 360) – 175K
6. Madden NFL 08 (Xbox 360) – 173K
7. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii) – 167K
8. BioShock (Xbox 360) – 150K
9. Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day (DS) – 141K
10. Heavenly Sword (PS3) – 139K