NPD says Darksiders II’ tops video games titles in August, sales down 20 per cent

NEW YORK, N.Y. – An industry research firm says that U.S. retail sales of new video game hardware, software and accessories fell for the ninth straight month in August.

The NPD Group said late Thursday that overall sales fell 20 per cent to $515.6 million.

Software sales — the video games themselves excluding PC titles — fell 9 per cent from a year earlier to $237.7 million. Sales of hardware such as Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 fell 39 per cent to $150.6 million. Accessories slid 7 per cent to $127.3 million.

The study from NPD tracks sales of new physical products — about 50 per cent of the total spending. Excluded are sales of used games and rentals as well as digital and social-network spending.

The top-selling game of the month was “Darksiders II.”