September NPD - US games sales drop 7% to $1.27 billion thanks to Halo 3 comparison

US games sales dropped 7 percent year-on-year in September - down from $1.35 billion to $1.27 billion - thanks to a hard comparison with the launch of Halo 3 last year, said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

"This is the first true monthly decline the industry has experienced since March of 2006," she said. "It's important to keep in mind, however, that this month's 7 percent decline is against a month (September 2007) that itself was up 75 percent from the prior September. Last year, Halo 3 released in September 2007 and that game had a huge impact on hardware and software sales."

Frazier added: "Overall, the health of the video games industry remains quite strong despite the rocky economic conditions. Tracking against typical industry seasonality, the U.S. video games industry is positioned to realize $22B or more in revenues for the year (does not include PC Games)."

Hardware sales were down 9 percent compared to September 2007, dropping from $545.67 to $497.98.

Software, too, saw a significant drop compared to last year, down 6 percent from $656.53 to $616.09 million.

For the rest of our September NPD coverage, hit this.