360 and Madden on top of August NPD, while Mario stays strong

Madden, Mafia II, Mario: US sales in August were dominated by the letter M. NPD group, the foremost collective when it comes to US gaming fiscal news and starting forum wars, released their list of console and games retail data. We’ll start with the game sales first:

1.Madden NFL 11| 360 | 920,800
2.Madden NFL 11| PS3 | 893,600
3.Super Mario Galaxy 2| Wii | 124,600
4.Mafia II| 360 | 121,600
5.New Super Mario Bros| DS | 110,400
6.New Super Mario Bros Wii| Wii
7.Mafia II| PS3
8.Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2| 360
9.NCAA Football 11| 360
10.Wii Fit Plus| Wii
(As usual, NPD only offers detailedsales numbersfor the first half of the top 10.)

Madden’s sales dominance is far from a surprise, but it’s kind of a big deal that the PS3 version selling basically the same as the 360 version. Over the past few years it’s been trailing the 360 edition by hundreds of thousands each launch moth, but it seems like the slim PS3 launch in the last year made a real difference this time around. Another big launch of the month, Mafia II, did alright, though it’s unlikely that it sold more than 250K over both consoles, which is a disappointing first month compared to the blockbuster success of Take 2’s last open world game, Red Dead Redemption.

Above: August was a big month for Italians

The remainder of the list was filled with old favorites, like Modern Warfare 2 and Wii Fit Plus, with Mario having a particularly good showing. Not only did Mario Galaxy 2 beat every game that isn’t Madden, but both versions of New Super Mario Bros can’t be stopped. Seriously, how can there still be people who don’t own New Mario for the DS? Lastly, note the two big August games that didn’t make the top 10: Metroid Other M and Kane & Lynch 2. While Metroid came out on the very last day of August and possibly missed the cut off for sales rankings, but Kane & Lynch 2 came out in the middle of the month and had ample time to rack up sales, so it seems the duo’s days might be numbered.

Above: Why didn’t people want to play this?

And here are the console sales, which had the 360 on top, even beating the seemingly unstoppable DS:

1. Xbox 360 | 356,700
2: Nintendo DS | 342,700
3. Wii | 244,300
4. PlayStation 3 | 226,000
5. PlayStation Portable | 79,400

Other than the continued success of the new slim 360, there’s no big reason for the 360’s dominance. And we can only expect it to continue with Halo: Reach hitting this month. Meanwhile, the DS sales seem to be slowing down, perhaps due to some consumers learning about the 3DS and holding off their handheld purchasing. The PS3 did some respectable numbers and lastly, the poor PSP sales are a dead horse that we refuse to flog.

Sep 10, 2010