US Charts: August shows flat growth as Madden tops charts

The latest figures from market data firm NPD show that overall industry growth for the month of August was completely flat in the USA, with EA's Madden NFL 2006 being the top-selling title by a huge margin.

Madden managed sales of over 2.2 million units during the month, helping to give Electronic Arts a three per cent boost in revenues compared with this month last year, although the biggest winner was THQ, for whom the success of Destroy All Humans helped to drive revenues up 41 per cent.

Trailing a long way behind in second place was Nintendo's latest DS title Nintendogs, which was released at the end of the month and had already sold almost 210,000 units by the start of September.

Even more impressive than its actual sales is the attach rate of Nintendogs, which has now sold through to over 10 per cent of DS owners in the United States, and is believed to be driving a major boost in hardware sales to boot.

Further down the chart, EA's NCAA Football 2006 takes third place with sales of around 180,000 units, while Take Two's movie tie-in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Novalogic's Delta Force: Black Hawk Down are separated by only a handful of units in fourth and fifth place respectively.

Other titles continuing to hold their own in the chart during this, the quietest month of the year so far, included Eidos' LEGO Star Wars and Lucasarts' Star Wars Battlefront - with sixth and seventh place positions proving the enduring power of the Star Wars brand.