October NPD Number Crunch: NBA 2K11 tops Fallout: New Vegas, Fable III

The NPD Group's leaner monthly sales breakdown for the North American gaming industry continues with their look at the October.  The lack of concrete sales figures for both console hardware and software remains disappointing, but at least that isn't stopping the console giants themselves from boasting of their victories.  One thing is for certain: the industry suffered a 4 percent year-on-year decline compared to October 2009, while performance year-to-date is now down 8 percent year-on-year.

On the hardware front, NPD confirms that the Nintendo DS managed to dethrone the Xbox 360 as the top-selling console hardware last month, ending the Xbox 360's four-month consecutive reign as top-dog.  That said, Microsoft was quick to note that the 360 remained the best-selling home console, with the most unit sales year-to-date to boot, and the NPD chimes in that it was the only platform to benefit from a year-on-year growth in sales for October.

Newcomers Fallout: New Vegas, Medal of Honor, Fable III, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II did very well last month, but none of them could keep 2K's NBA 2K11 from stealing the spotlight as the bestselling game.  They all still managed to land in the NPD software top five, not too shabby when you consider that most launched fairly late into October.  The 360 version of Fallout: New Vegas in particular earned the distinction of being the top-selling single SKU for October, contributing 679,000 units to the title's combined total.

October 2010 US Console Games Industry Summary
Total Sales - $1.03 billion USD (-4%)
Hardware Sales - $280 million USD (-26%)
Software Sales - $605 million USD ( 6%)
Accessory Sales - $142 million USD ( 18%)