September NPD: Madden, Borderlands, and FIFA take top spots

This month's NPD sales chart looks like a "who's who" of gaming.

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This month's NPD sales chart looks like a "who's who" of gaming. September kicks off the busy holiday season, and gamers had a lot to buy. Taking first place is Madden NFL 13, with FIFA Soccer 13 following in third. With two huge hits, no wonder EA Sports has been tooting its horn as of late.

Borderlands 2 managed to squeeze itself in the middle there, proving that just maybe the original wasn't some sort of fluke. In fact, NPD's Liam Callahan notes that the sequel "exceeded the first month's unit sales of the first game which launched in October 2009 by 234%."

Distressingly for THQ, Darksiders 2 has dropped from the top ten after taking first place in last month's charts. Kingdom Hearts 3D, Sleeping Dogs, and Transformers all lost their position as well.

    Top 10 Games (New Physical Retail only; across all platforms including PC)

  • Madden NFL 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSV)
  • Borderlands 2 (360, PS3, PC)
  • FIFA Soccer 13 (360, PS3, PSV, Wii, 3DS, PSP)
  • New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)
  • Guild Wars 2 (PC)
  • NHL 13 (360, PS3)
  • World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (PC)
  • NCAA Football 13 (360, PS3)
  • Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSV, PC)
  • Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)

The number of PC games is quite impressive, considering NPD tracks retail releases only. Clearly, there's still demand for retail releases of online-only PC games, as evidenced by the success of both Guild Wars 2 and Mists of Pandaria. In fact, "unit sales of PC Games are up 12% year to date through September." Hooray PC gaming!

But not everything is all roses and rainbows. "Although a stronger slate of content was released to market as compared to recent past months... the top-selling game for the month in each of the two comparison months, the remaining top 10 titles sold through 18% fewer units than they did last year," Callahan said while raining on the industry's parade. Of course, be mindful that NPD figures don't account for digital sales.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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