According to NPD Group’s July statistics, the gaming industry, more or less, remained steady year-on-year during the month – with the notable gains in hardware sales largely compensating for the somewhat weak software and accessory sales.

As per NPD’s July data, the $847 million overall video games revenue for the month marked a marginal, 1 percent, increase over the July 2009 figures of $851 million overall video games revenue.

While software sales and accessory sales plunged 8 percent and 2 percent, to $403 million and $129 million respectively; games hardware sales increased 12 percent to $314 million, with Microsoft’s new slimline Xbox 360 being a leading contributor to the sales figures.

Specifically speaking, while the sales of Xbox 360 witnessed a 54 percent year-on-year increase during the month; the sales PlayStation 3 witnessed a rise of 44 percent. Furthermore, the Wii sales remained almost steady; while the Nintendo DS slaes and PSP sales witnessed a plunge of 26 percent and 32 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, the top five best-selling game titles during the month of July were: NCAA Football 11 for Xbox 360; NCAA Football 11 for PS3; Crackdown 2; Super Mario Galaxy 2; and LEGO Harry Potter.

Talking about the June-launched LEGO Harry Potter, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said: “In over a month at retail, it has already sold enough to put it just outside of the top 20 games year-to-date.”