[Update] You can find an extended list of best-selling software, which includes the top twenty selling titles for the month of August, over here. [End of Update]

The NPD Group has released the latest round of sales figures for the videogame industry in the US for the month of August 2010, and unfortunately the research and sales tracking firm doesn’t have especially good news for us number nuts, announcing that industry revenue in the region dropped by ten percent compared to August 2009.

Overall sales in the industry stood at $818.9 million for August, down $91.4 million from the same period last year. Year-to-date, industry revenue accumulated during 2010 is roughly $720 million behind 2009 during the same timeframe - from January to August 2010, the industry has generated $8.37 billion.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier noted:

“In fact, this month reflected the lowest sales for August since 2006. While all categories are down in both dollars and units, the portable portion of the industry is down to a greater extent than is the console portion.”

While the outlook looks a little dismal, Frazier reminds us of the strong lineup of games and accessories (PlayStation Move and Xbox 360 Kinect amongst them) yet to release this year, which she says could help improve total year end revenue and drive final sales to between $18.6 and $20 billion – in line with 2009’s total of $19.6 billion.

Software Sales

Software sales for the month of August 2010 in the US fell by $67.7 million, down to $403.5 million, which represents a drop of 14 percent. This, despite an extremely strong showing on the part of EA’s American football series, Madden NFL 11, which sold a combined (and whopping) $1.8 million units across PS3 and Xbox 360:

“Madden NFL 11 once again made August ‘Madden Month’ at retail,” says Anita Frazier. “Sales of this year’s game were about 6% higher than last year’s in its debut month, but interestingly, all of the gains occurred on the PS3 platform, reflecting the impact of the hardware sales momentum on corresponding software sales.”

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is still hanging in there and sold 125 000 units to place in third in the sales list, the Xbox 360 version of debut title Mafia II managed a fourth place showing with 121 000 units sold, and New Super Mario Bros. for the DS sold 110 000 units to chart at No. 5.

Top Ten Software Sales for August 2010

• 1.) Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360) - 920 800
• 2.) Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts, PS3) - 893 600
• 3.) Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo, Wii) - 124 600
• 4.) Mafia II (Take 2 Interactive, Xbox 360) - 121 600
• 5.) New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, DS) - 110 400
• 6.) New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo, Wii)
• 7.) Mafia II (Take 2 Interactive, PS3)
• 8.) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard, Xbox 360)
• 9.) NCAA Football 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360)
• 10.) Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo, Wii)

(Note: NPD will from now on only release sales figures for the top five games in the monthly sales chart.)

Hardware Sales

Hardware sales for August 2010 in the US dropped by five percent, or $14.7 million, compared to the same period last year, down to $282.9 million. Sales of videogame accessories were down six percent, and sales of hardware and software in the portable games market were down 25 percent.

Good news for Microsoft, however, is that the Xbox 360 has for the second month in a row taken the lead on the hardware sales listing, and for the third month in a row it’s managed to outsell all other home consoles.

The magic number that the Xbox 360 needed to reach to achieve such a feat was 356 700 units sold, only 14 000 units away from second place Nintendo DS, but importantly 112 000 units ahead of third place Nintendo Wii – the lowest number of Wii units sold since the console’s launch in 2006, but a downward trend Frazier expects to reverse with the release of Wii Party (from Nintendo) and Guilty Party (from Disney).

The sales momentum for the Xbox 360 is only set to continue with the release of Halo: Reach this month.

The PlayStation 3, on the other hand, enjoyed its thirteenth consecutive week of year-over-year sales increases by selling 226 000 consoles in August 2010, which represents a five percent increase over August 2009. Frazier notes that these consistent sales increases have begun to have a positive effect on the sales of PS3 accessories and games, too.

Hardware Sales for August 2010

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

(Note: NPD will from now on no longer report monthly sales of the PS2.)

US Videogame Industry Totals for August 2010

(Category, followed by the total and the year-to-date change in brackets.)

• Videogames - $818.9 million (-10%)
• Videogame hardware - $282.9 million (-5%)
• Videogame software - $403.5 million (-14%)
• Videogame accessories - $132.4 million (-6%)

You can see NPD’s sales report for July 2010 over here.