Following a fantastic July in which the U.S. game industry posted over $925 million in sales, growth was even better in August. Total sales reached $993 million, an increase of more than 46 percent. Year-to-date the industry now stands at $8.02 billion, tracking ahead of last year by 43 percent.

In August video game hardware continued to soar, up over 94 percent to $384 million. Console hardware in particular grew 152 percent to $302 million, while portable hardware climbed only 5.5 percent. Unsurprisingly, the Wii was once again tops with 403.6K units, beating out the DS, which sold 383.3K units. As was somewhat expected following the price cuts, Microsoft's Xbox 360 saw a nice jump in sales as it rose from 170K in July to 276.7K in August. Meanwhile, the PS3 actually dropped from 159K to 130.6K in August. Rounding out the PlayStation platforms, the PS2 sold 202K units and the PSP sold 151.2K.

Factoring these August numbers in gives us life-to-date totals in the U.S. as follows:

  • PS2: 39.1 million
  • PS3: 1.75 million
  • PSP: 8.3 million
  • Xbox 360: 6.3 million
  • Wii: 4 million
  • NDS: 12.7 million

As for software, the industry had a great month, driven by EA's Madden, which sold upwards of 1.9 million copies on the PS2, 360 and PS3 platforms alone. Take-Two's BioShock also did quite well, selling almost half a million. Overall software sales rose 22.5 percent to $488 million. Console software sales were up over 25 percent and accounted for $393 million of that total. Portable software meanwhile grew 11.9 percent. Finally, the accessories sector grew 47 percent to $121 million.

Here are the top 20 games of August (ranked by units, which NPD only provided for the top 10):

  1. Madden NFL 08—360—EA—896.6K
  2. Madden NFL 08—PS2—EA—643.6K
  3. BioShock—360—Take-TwoEA—490.9K
  4. Madden NFL 08—PS3—EA—336.2K
  5. Wii Play/ w remote—Wii—Nintendo—256.8K
  6. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption—Wii—Nintendo—218.1K
  7. Mario Strikers Charged—Wii—Nintendo—147.4K
  8. Guitar Hero 2 w/guitar—PS2—Activision—145.4K
  9. Mario Party 8—Wii—Nintendo—138.3K
  10. Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s—PS2—Activision—127.1K
  11. Madden NFL 08—Xbox—EA
  12. Madden NFL 08—Wii—EA
  13. Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day—DS—Nintendo
  14. Two Worlds—360—Southpeak Interactive
  15. Pokemon Diamond—DS—Nintendo
  16. High School Musical: Making the Cut—DS—Disney Interactive
  17. Guitar Hero 2 w/guitar—360—Activision
  18. Madden NFL 08—PSP—EA
  19. Pokemon Pearl—DS—Nintendo
  20. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08—360—EA

Page two: insightful commentary from NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier