EA, Nintendo Titles Rule NPD Top 20 For Another Month

For the second month in a row, Electronic Arts and Nintendo software dominated NPD Group's top 20 software titles, according to a list obtained by Gamasutra. Out of the top 20 software titles for August, which saw software sales decline year-on-year to $470.3 million, Nintendo of America published nine of those games. The best-selling Nintendo game for the month was Wii Sports Resort, which sold 754,000 units, bested only by Madden NFL 10 for Xbox 360, which sold 928,000 units. But previously unreleased information show that in the lower half of the top 20, there were Nintendo games dating back to 2005 and 2006, namely Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros. Half of the bottom 10 titles were first-party Nintendo games. Nintendo's newly-released puzzler Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box debuted at number 16 after being on the market for only a few days. Judging by confirmed sales for number 17-ranked Madden NFL 10 for Wii and number 10-ranked Fossil Fighters, we know that the new Layton sold between 67,000 and 92,000 for the month. Electronic Arts captured seven of the top 20 slots, with games including Madden NFL, NCAA Football 10, and EA Sports Active. NCAA Football 10 for Xbox 360 fell from number two last month to number three, while EA Sports Active fell from number 10 to number 19. Aside from EA and Nintendo, filling out the rest of the list were Square Enix-owned Eidos' Batman: Arkham Asylum, which sold 303,000 on Xbox 360 and 290,000 on PS3, and the Activision Blizzard game Wolfenstein for Xbox 360, which made its debut at number 18. Square Enix's Dissidia: Final Fantasy for PSP made the top 10 with 130,000 sold. The full Top 20 for August 2009 is as follows, as provided by NPD Group: