August NPD: It's another mad, mad, Madden year

The sun will rise, the moon will set and it would be a sign of the end days if Madden didn't rule August software sales in the United States. The August NPDs are out and Madden NFL 11 sold over 1.8 million units in the month, a six percent increase over last year, with significant increases on PS3. Mafia 2, which Take-Two expects to be profitable, entered with a badda-boom and appears to have sold around 200K units during the month -- the title has been a chart topper in the UK since launch.

The Xbox 360 remains the top-selling console for a second month, but its sales did drop nearly 20 percent from July. The only hardware to see sales gains during the month was the PlayStation 3, which according to the NPD has now seen 13 consecutive months of year-over-year sales increases.

Overall, hardware and software sales were down both year-over-year and year-to-date. Sales for hardware, software and accessories combined was down 10 percent to $818.9M from last year and down 8 percent year-to-date to $8.31 billion. Consoles tried to make up for the sagging handheld market, as NPD analyst Anita Frazier notes, "The 360 and PS3 platforms both grew in dollar sales versus last year. In fact, the 360 platform contributed more than 1/3 of total new physical retail sales across hardware, software and accessories while the PS3 platform contributed over 1/4 of total dollar sales."

Oh yeah, one more thing: the top ten list of titles after the break only charts console and portable SKUs, so it's worth mentioning StarCraft 2 sold another 300K units in August, which would make it the second best-selling game for the month... if it were factored in. Frazer also stated, "PC games retail dollar sales saw a 35% increase over last August."

• 360: 357K, down 83K (-19.7%)
• DS: 343K, down 55.3K (-13.9%)
• Wii: 244K, down 9.7K (-3.8%)
• PS3: 226K, up 11K (5.1%)
• PSP: 79K, down 4.6K (-5.5%)

1. Madden NFL 11 – Xbox 360 – EA – 920.8K
2. Madden NFL 11 – PS3 – EA – 893.6K
3. Super Mario Galaxy 2 – Wii – Nintendo – 124.6K
4. Mafia 2 – Xbox 360 – Take-Two – 121.6K
5. New Super Mario Bros. – DS – Nintendo – 110.4K
6. New Super Mario Bros. – Wii – Nintendo
7. Mafia 2 – PS3 – Take-Two
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Xbox 360 – Activision-Blizzard
9. NCAA Football 11 – Xbox 360 – EA
10. Wii Fit Plus – Wii – Activision