Following a record $22 billion in U.S. video game industry sales for 2008, calendar year 2009 has gotten off on the right foot with total sales of $1.33 billion in January (a 13 percent increase over Jan. '08). Hardware sales climbed 17 percent to $445.4 million while software sales increased 10 percent to $676.6 million. Accessories were also up 11 percent to $209.8 million.

"At this point in the console lifecycle, we would expect to see a greater percentage of total industry sales generated by software sales, but the continued strength in hardware sales is changing that scenario a bit. This will have a long-term positive impact on the industry as the user base expands," commented NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier. "Software sales still increased 10 percent over last January, indicating that continued strong hardware sales are not occurring at the expense of software sales."

Last year, especially during the holiday shopping season, you could pretty much divide the industry into Nintendo and "everybody else." Well, Nintendo's domination of the market is certainly continuing in 2009. The Wii and DS combined for over 1.1 million hardware units, and in software, half of the top 10 titles were for Nintendo platforms.

The Wii sold through 679.2K units for the month and the DS sold another 510.8K. Coming in third was Microsoft's Xbox 360 with 309K units sold. Sony's PS3 came in about 100K lower with 203.2K units sold. Finally, the PSP and PS2 sold 172.3K and 101.2K units, respectively.

As for software, all those new Wii owners were clearly driven towards Wii Fit, which sold another 777K units, followed by Wii Play, which sold 415K units.

Here are the top 10 selling titles (ranked by units):

1. Wii Fit - Wii – Nintendo – 777K
2. Wii Play w/ remote - Wii – Nintendo – 415K
3. Mario Kart w/ wheel - Wii – Nintendo – 292K
4. Left 4 Dead - Xbox 360 – EA – 243K
5. Call of Duty: World at War - Xbox 360 – Activision Blizzard – 235K*
6. Skate 2 - Xbox 360 – EA – 199K
7. Guitar Hero World Tour - Wii – Activision Blizzard – 155K*
8. New Super Mario Bros. - DS – Nintendo – 135K
9. Mario Kart DS - DS – Nintendo – 132K
10. Lord of the Rings: Conquest - Xbox 360 – EA – 113K

*includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware

"Only two of the top 10 games this month were new releases. The continued strength of games that have been in the market for some time clues us into just how many new consumers are coming into the industry," added Frazier. "This broadening of the audience for gaming will help buoy the industry through these tough economic times, provided they have enough compelling content to keep them interested."