Sales tracking and research firm The NPD Group has released this month’s report on the state of the videogame industry in the US, recording $961.2 million in sales across hardware, software and accessories segments of the market in April 2011 – up from $802.4 million in April of 2010, representing a 20% increase.

These results helped the US videogame industry to a 2% year-to-date lead over 2010’s results.

April 2011 Software Sales

Software sales in the US for April 2011 were recorded at $533.6 million, which is up an impressive 24% from the same period last year. More games were sold across every console (excluding the PSP) this past month compared to April 2010, while Xbox 360 saw 3.5 million games sold for the system, which is the highest of any console this month.

Interestingly, this is the first month since November that year-over-year unit and dollar growth has been experienced in the software category.

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The 3DS launched last month to mixed results, as far as we can tell. NPD doesn't report hardware numbers, of course, but the agency reports that in its first seven days on the market, the handheld's performance "compares quite favorably to that of the best-selling dedicated handheld gaming platform of all time, the Nintendo DS." It sold about 100,000 fewer units than the 479,000 DS did in its launch month -- but that was a November.

Nintendo previously said the console had the best first day of any handheld in US history. Even so, it managed not to be the top seller of the month. That honor goes to ... the Nintendo DS.

Nintendo had the largest presence on NPD Group's Top 20 June U.S. video game retail charts, as Mario titles on Wii and Pokemon games on Nintendo DS proliferated the rankings, the tracking firm announced on Friday.

Nintendo had a total of eight out of 20 titles on the list, compared to other publishers like Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft that had one or two titles each that made the chart.

Nintendo's sales juggernauts sit atop the video gaming world for another month.

The NPD Group has released its sales number for the month of May (5/2/2010 - 5/29/2010), and Nintendo leads the charts once again.

The Nintendo DS led hardware sales for the month, moving 383,700 units.  The Wii wasn't far behind at 334,800 units sold.  For comparision, the PlayStation 3 (154,500) and Xbox 360 (194,600) combined sold 349,100 units for the period.  In other words, Nintendo is still handily outselling every competitor in the United States in both the console and portable arenas.

NPD US Video Game System Sales - May 2010

383.7K - Nintendo DS   
334.8K - Wii
194.6K - Xbox 360
154.5K - PlayStation 3 
059.4K - PSP           

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NPD Results: Splinter Cell, Pokemon Top April Charts - Super Street Fighter IV also manages to crack top ten, in its premiere month.

The NPD Group has released its videogame sales results for the month of April, confirming earlier reports that Splinter Cell: Conviction was the best-selling game at 486,100 units.

Nintendo's Pokemon SoulSilver and Pokemon HeartGold, in their second month on the chart, sold a combined 435,500 copies - 242,900 and 192,600, respectively.

March 2010 NPD numbers (US) are out..

According to NPD analyst David Riley, "March 2010 is the third best
non-holiday month on record behind March 2008 and June 2008."

Oh, and God of War III sorta lost to Pokemon.

Combining Pokemon SoulSilver and HeartGold sales, the Nintendo powerhouse title sold 1.8 million units, while God of War III only sold 1.1 million. The actual ranking, however, pulls to two version apart to get this top 10 list of bestselling video games for March 2010:

Nintendo also sold another 2.4 million copies of Wii Fit Plus and 1.79 million copies of Wii Sports Resort last month, securing the top three spots on NPD's list of December's bestselling games. Nintendo had six of the top ten bestselling games for the month, representing more than 9.62 million games sold across the Wii and DS platforms.

And that's just in the top ten.

The Xbox 360 had three of the top ten, with Modern Warfare 2 moving another 1.63 million, Assassin's Creed II (783.1K) and Left 4 Dead 2 (728.5K) also charting high. Modern Warfare 2 represented the PlayStation 3's only top ten showing, another million-plus copies sold.

Here's the tally, from 11/29/09 - 1/2/10, according to the NPD Group.

01. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) - 2,820,000
02. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) - 2,410,000
03. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) - 1,790,000
04. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360) - 1,630,000
05. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3) - 1,120,000
06. Wii Play (Wii) - 1,010,000
07. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 936,1000
08. Assassin's Creed II (Xbox 360) - 783,1000
09. Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360) - 728,500
10. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS) - 656,700

There is much more after the break..