The NPD Group's August 2012 US retail sales report confirms another 20 percent year-on-year drop in industry sales overall, the same as July's findings.  While August saw the the launch of more new titles compared to last year, with better launch sales to boot, NPD's analyst Anita Frazier blamed the overall lack of new releases thus far into 2012 as a detrimental factor which will not only impact August's sales, but subsequent months as well.

That's a shame, as half of the NPD software top ten for the month of August 2012 was populated by new titles which launched that month including New Super Mario Bros. 2, Kingdom Hearts 3D (which missed July's report due to the title launching past the reporting period cut-off), Sleeping Dogs, Transformers and the top-selling title, Darksiders II.  In case you haven't been following the title, we happen to think it was a pretty good game.

Suggesting that the current platforms are "showing their age," NPD analyst Anita Frazier feels all eyes should now be set on newcomers like the Wii U to "breathe life into traditional retail industry sales."

August 2012 US Games Industry Summary
Total Industry Sales - $515.6 million USD (-20%)
Console Hardware Sales - $150.6 million USD (-39%)
Console Software Sales - $237.7 million USD (-9%)
Total Software Sales - $252.8 million USD (-11%)
Accessory Sales - $127.3 million USD (-7%)