SCE Santa Monica's brutal PlayStation 3-exclusive sequel God of War III took top honors as the best-selling console game in the United States during March 2010, research firm NPD Group revealed today in its monthly update on hardware and software sales.

"For the first time since its launch in the US, the PS3 has four titles in the Top 10, and was also the leader in console software sales," noted NPD's Anita Frazier. Meanwhile, only two Xbox 360 titles--Final Fantasy XIII, Battlefield: Bad Company 2--made the chart: Read more »

With February 2010 now behind us, research firm NPD Group has released its regular breakdown of the past month's U.S. console hardware and software sales.

A few interesting tidbits: The Xbox 360 outsold the Wii for the first time since September 2007, which is when Halo 3 was released. The PlayStation 3 edition of BioShock 2 is nowhere to be found despite the Xbox 360 version topping the chart. The bonus-packed PlayStation 3 edition of Dante's Inferno outsold the regular Xbox 360 iteration. Read more »

Continuing today's smorgasbord of announcements and revelations, market research firm The NPD Group has pulled back the curtain on its monthly report, revealing January 2010's top-selling console games and hardware figures for the United States.

In all, the overall U.S. video game market was down 13%, pulling in $1.17 billion compared to January 2009's $1.34B. Across the various segments, hardware saw the biggest drop, coming in at $353.7M--down 32% over January 2009's $446.8M. Read more »

Having updated its lifetime hardware sales figures, Nintendo today confirmed that the Wii has outsold the Nintendo Entertainment System--making Wii the "best selling Nintendo home videogame console of all time"--while the Nintendo DS has replaced the GameBoy as its best-selling hardware of all time.

"Needless to say, these are just two milestones of a larger journey in our efforts to reach the ultimate goal of bringing one home console for every household and one handheld for everyone," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata explained in his presentation. Read more »

Marking the recent end of its third fiscal quarter, Nintendo today released sales figures on its hardware and notable software releases, and the results are impressive.

Compiling the various sales figures of its monthly reports, marketing research firm The NPD Group has issued its take on the best-selling games at U.S. retail in 2009.

In all, the United States video game industry brought in $20.2 billion during 2009. Read more »

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 publisher Activision today announced that Infinity Ward's shooter has racked up over $1,000,000,000 US in estimated worldwide retail sales.

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has exceeded our expectations and shattered theatrical box office and video game records," said Acvitision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. "There are only a handful of entertainment properties that have ever reached the $1 billion mark, which illustrates the power of the Call of Duty franchise and mass appeal of this game." Read more »

Kicking off new year with self-congratulatory press release, Nintendo began today by listing off some of its accomplishments in 2009, such as its estimate that the Nintendo DS "set a new all-time calendar-year U.S. sales record for any console or hand-held."

The company further boasted that the Nintendo DS represents the "best selling videogame console" in European history with over 40 million sold across five years, with the Wii having sold just over 20 million in the territory across three years. Read more »

With developer Gearbox having previously declared Borderlands "the fastest-selling original property video game launch of 2009," publisher Take-Two Interactive has now brought actual sales numbers to light.

Discussing its "recent product highlights" today, Take-Two specified that the shooter-RPG has "sold over 2 million units worldwide" since its October release on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, adding that it "has established itself as a key franchise for Take-Two." Read more »

Publisher Activision continues to toot its own horn over the recent release of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 2 Modern Warfare 2 with new figures for the first five days of sale, revealing a "new worldwide estimated five-day sell-through record" of $550 million.

Backing up its bold claim that Modern Warfare 2's arrival on November 10 was "the biggest launch in history across all forms of entertainment," Activision lists the following book, movie and video game records broken by the shooter sequel's launch. Read more »

Borderlands had "the fastest-selling original property video game launch of 2009," developer Gearbox proclaimed today alongside word of the imminent PC patch.

Exact sales figures for the shooter-RPG, which hit consoles and PC in October, weren't provided. Sales-tracking firm NPD recently revealed that the Xbox 360 version sold 418,000 copies in the United States during October, with the PlayStation 3 version netting sales of 113,000. Combined, the two SKUs rival chart topper Uncharted 2. Read more »

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 publisher Activision has declared this week's release of Infinity Ward's shooter "the biggest launch in history across all forms of entertainment."

Approximately 4.7 million copies of Modern Warfare 2 were bought within the first 24 hours of sale in North America and the United Kingdom alone according to internal estimates, which Activision works out as $310 million of sell-through sales. Read more »

Sony had a big month in September, with the PlayStation 3 claiming the top spot in console hardware sales for the first time, according to NPD's US sales data.

"Compared to last September, the PS3 was the big winner, more than doubling last year's sales," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "This portrays a very strong consumer reaction to the price decrease as August and September both realized a lift of more than 70% over the prior month." Read more »

Bungie's stand-alone Halo 3 expansion topped the NPD sales charts in September, beating Wii Sports and Madden NFL 10 by a significant margin with over 1.5 million units sold.

Also notable was the performance of The Beatles: Rock Band, which clearly beat Guitar Hero 5 sales on Xbox 360 despite launching nine days later. The Wii version of The Beatles also came in strong, selling enough units to claim the tenth place on the list. Read more »

The videogame industry continued to struggle in July, posting $848 million in total US sales, a 29% decrease in overall sales compared to the same month last year.

Interestingly, only publishers Electronic Arts and Nintendo made the top 10 in software sales. Wii Sports Resort sold over 500,000 units, while NCAA Football 10 pushed over 600,000 units across the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

July's top 10 software: Read more »