Darksiders II, New Super Mario Bros. 2 Tops August NPD Charts

U.S. market research firm NPD has released its monthly video game retail sales figures for the month of August. The highest selling title for the month was THQ’s Darksiders II, with 247,000 units sold. New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Nintendo 3DS placed second with 240,000 units sold and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, also for the Nintendo 3DS, sold 180,000 copies. Worth mentioning is Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, which placed 7th and sold 105,000 units.

NPD’s reporting period is from July 29 through August 25, in case you were wonder why Madden NFL 13, which was released on August 28, is noticeably absent from this list. Nintendo released a press release and added some statistics for their 3DS platform. Hardware sales were up 36% over July and software sales were up 68%. New Super Mario Bros was the best selling new SKU this past month as Darksiders II‘s sales numbers are from its Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC releases combined.

The full top 10 list of best-selling video games in the U.S. in August 2012 can be seen below:

1. Darksiders II (360, PS3, PC)**
2. New Super Mario Bros 2 (3DS)
3. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (3DS)**
4. NCAA Football 13 (360, PS3)
5. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSV, PC)
6. Sleeping Dogs (360, PS3)
7. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (360, PS3)
8. Batman: Arkham City (360, PS3, PC)**
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, NDS, Wii, PC)**
10. The Amazing Spider-Man (360, PS3, NDS, 3DS, Wii)

**(includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)

In terms of the marketplace, hardware sales were down 39% from August 2011, making a total of $150.6 million as opposed to last year’s $248.8 million. The Xbox 360 was the best selling platform this month at 190,000 units. Only one week of the 3DS XL’s sales was recorded but it accounted for 44% of all 3DS sales in August. Accessories were down 7% with 127.3 million sold versus 2011′s $137 million. Software sales were down 9% and make 237.7 million as compared to $261.8 million during the same time last year. If you look at software for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, sales were only down 1% and shows the market stabilizing.

Do you pick up any of these titles? How do you feel about Darksiders II topping the sales charts? What are your thoughts on the state of the video game marketplace? Comment below and let us know!

About the Author

Esteban Cuevas

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Hello. I'm Esteban Sky Cuevas aka Colorwind and I'm the managing editor for Gaming Precision. I've been gaming ever since I was six years old when I played Sonic the Hedgehog 2 at someone's house and then begged for a video game console. That console was a NES but I quickly moved on to a SNES, Genesis, PS1, N64, Atari 2600, Game Boy Color, Dreamcast, PS2, Saturn, GameCube, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PSP, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and 3DS. I like all genres of video games but I'm partial to Platform titles, Action Adventure games, and fighters. I love old SNK fighters like Samurai Shodown and Fatal Fury, and my favorite video game character is Sonic the Hedgehog. My top five consoles are in reverse order the Xbox 360, SNES, Sega Dreamcast, Sega Genesis and Sony PlayStation, although I often talk about how the Sega Saturn deserves more attention than it got. Check out my Twitter and Tumblr if you would like to follow me.

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