360 Madden Outsells PS2 Version in August, BioShock Takes Third Spot

NPD gave Shacknews the North American software sales numbers for the month of August today, with the top two spots taken by the Xbox 360 version and PlayStation 2 version of EA Tiburon's Madden NFL 08. This reverses previous year trends, as the PlayStation 2 version of Madden NFL 07 outsold the Xbox 360 version by about 1 million units in 2006. The 360 Madden stiff-armed its way to 896,600 homes during the game's first month at retail, a considerably higher amount than the 643,600 PS2 versions sold. Using Madden sales as a relative measure of console popularity, it would seem the mainstream move to current-gen consoles has arrived. This shift is seen further by the Xbox 360's 276,000 units shipped during August, beating out the last-gen PS2's 202,000. Taking third place in software sales was the Xbox 360 version of 2K Boston/2K Australia's underwater shooter BioShock, selling 490,900 units during the month. Nintendo-published Wii titles like Retro Studios' Metroid Prime 3: Corruption took four of the top ten spots in August. Overall, year-to-date software sales are up 22.0% to $3.8 billion compared to 2006, with August having a 22.5% year-over-year increase in sales to $488 million. Check out the complete list of the month's top-10 best-selling software below

1. Madden NFL 08 (X360; EA Tiburon, EA Sports) 896,600 units
2. Madden NFL 08 (PS2; EA Tiburon, EA Sports) 643,600 units
3. BioShock (X360; 2K Boston/2K Australia, 2K Games) 490,900 units
4. Madden NFL 08 (PS3; EA Tiburon, EA Sports) 336,200 units
5. Wii Play (Wii; Nintendo) 256,800 units
6. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii; Retro Studios, Nintendo) 218,100 units
7. Mario Strikers: Charged (Wii; Next Level Games, Nintendo) 147,400 units
8. Guitar Hero 2 (PS2; Harmonix, RedOctane/Activision) 145,400 units
9. Mario Party 8 (Wii; Hudson Soft, Nintendo) 138,300 units
10. Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s (PS2; Harmonix, RedOctane/Activision) 127,100 units