NPD August 2010: Microsoft and Sony respond

US sales figures for August are in. Microsoft trumped rival consoles; Madden NFL tackled the software chart; PS3 is now in 13 million US homes.

Both console giants have released their statements on the data: hit the drop to see what each had to say on the matter.

Xbox 360 sales contribute to $279 million spent in August

Net-net, for the third month in a row, Xbox 360 led the console sales charts with 357K consoles sold, which is an increase of 66 percent compared to August 2009,  besting Wii by more than 100K units despite being down by 83K over last month.

Overall, the increase in console sales contributed to $279 million in total spend at retail on Xbox 360 hardware, software and accessories for the month.

In August, four of the top ten console games were on Xbox 360, including Madden NFL 11 moving 921K units, Mafia II with 122K  units, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 moving 101K, and NCAA Football 11 with 87K units sold.

Microsoft also noted that Red Dead Redemption moved  75K copies for the month.

Additionally, the Xbox 360 attach rate now stands at 8.9.

Year-to-date units moved for Xbox 360 now stand at 2,696,200.

"Next week, Microsoft will launch what is expected to be the biggest game of the year, Halo:Reach, with Fable III coming later this fall, followed by the US launch of Kinect for Xbox 360 on November 4, 2010 – just in time for holiday," said Microsoft in a statement.

"While the next few months will be busy – preparing for holiday sales, meeting retail demand, and driving incentives – the strong momentum for Xbox 360 is poised to continue through the holidays and beyond."

Sony experiences thirteenth consecutive month of yoy growth

PS3 may have only been fourth on the hardware charts moving a total of 226K during August, but it still saw 40 percent growth for the eight months of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009.

The console has increased in sales by 8 percent year-over-year,  with August  marking the thirteenth month of consecutive growth, and 13 million PS3 units in homes across the US.

Two PS3 games ranked in the top ten software skus for the month, including Madden NFL 11 (893.6K) and Mafia II.

"When PlayStation first emerged on the gaming scene 15 years ago, it garnered immediate attention for breaking the standard model of cartridge-based video gaming with a disc-based model and robust three-dimensional game play, helping to drive the transformation of a $2B dollar a year industry into a more than $20B industry, annually," said SCEA director of corporate communications Patrick Seybold in a statement.

"Fast forward fifteen years and PlayStation continues to push the envelope of innovation with the industry's biggest franchises and new technologies like PlayStation Move and 3D stereoscopic gaming. August marks our 13th consecutive month of year-over-year growth for the PS3, supporting our ongoing momentum and further preparing us to officially kick off the key selling season next week with PlayStation Move."

Year-to-date units moved for PS3 now stand at 2,031,500. PSP figures YTD is 683,379.

You can get the full figures and analysis for August here.

Note: At the time of this posting, we've still yet to heard from Nintendo on the matter. When it gets around to issuing a response, we will update this post accordingly.  Sorry for the delay, we had planned on posting this last night after the numbers went up. - SN