14 DAY TRIAL // According to this month's NPD software sales data, Halo: Reach has dominated the opposition, managing to sell around 3.3 million copies in North America.
The NPD Group, even though it will not reveal concrete sales data from now on, with its monthly sales charts, has still revealed the top 10 best selling games during the month of September across the United States of America.
Halo: Reach confirmed its blockbuster status, and, according to both the NPD and Microsoft, moved 3.3 million units across the country, and has joined last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3 as the only games that managed to sell over 3 million copied in their first month.
EA also managed an impressive month, with its sports franchises, Madden NFL 11, NHL 11 and FIFA Soccer 11 all managing to crack the top five sales chart.
Metroid: Other M for the Wii and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for the PSP have joined the platform exclusives club, alongside Halo: Reach.
Dead Rising 2 proved impressive skill in attracting a huge number of players, even though it was launched on September 28, five days before the NPD chart ended, and still shows that people want to kill zombies.
Notable mentions go to Mafia II, who still displays decent sales across three platforms, and newcomer Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, across four platforms.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is still doing great, even if almost a year since its original launch has passed.
Sales of new, retail games in the U.S. for September are ranked as follows:
1. Halo: Reach (Microsoft, Xbox 360) 3,300,000 2. Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, PSP) 3. Dead Rising 2 (Capcom, Xbox 360, PS3, PC) 4. NHL 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360, PS3) 5. FIFA Soccer 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, NDS) 6. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (Square Enix, PSP) 7. Mafia II (Take-Two, Xbox 360, PS3, PC) 8. Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (Activision Blizzard, PS3, Xbox 360, NDS, Wii) 9. Metroid: Other M (Nintendo, Wii) 10. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
"While industry sales of new physical retail sales show a decline versus year ago, it's important to remember that there is a growing volume of content being sold digitally, or otherwise outside the traditional retail channel," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said.
"These numbers reflect the largest channel for hardware, software and accessories sales, but there are content sales happening elsewhere."
In October we have quite a few big releases, including Medal of Honor, Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II and God of War: Ghost of Sparta.