Ah, the monthly NPD report for the video game industry in America. If you’ve never noticed before, it’s always apparently good news for everyone involved. Even if their competitors outsell them considerably during the month, a company will find a way to give out a good press release. Every company gives out a press release stating how there sales were better than last month or last year. It’s a standard business practice, but it’s still good for a laugh every now and then.

Here are the big numbers in a nutshell. Overall industry sales, which includes hardware, software, and accessories, was at $1.25 billion dollars. Nintendo’s Wii was the best selling system of the month as usual, with 274k units sold during the month. Sony’s PS3 sold 269k, outselling Microsoft’s Xbox 360 for the first time, a major victory for Sony. The Xbox 360 sold 230k units during the month, perhaps knowing they would be behind the competition when Microsoft announced they had supply issues right before the NPD report came out. On the handheld side, the DS sold 251k units while the PSP sold 230k. (more…)

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To celebrate today’s Hallmark induced festivities, here’s a short promotional video for Burnout Paradise produced by Electronic Arts. What? It doesn’t sound very romantic to you? Oh, but it is. Beyond that, it also happens to be genuinely clever and funny. Those are two things sorely lacking in most gaming advertisements today. Who would have ever thought we’d yearn for the days of Crash Bandicoot standing outside Nintendo’s offices with a megaphone? Sigh.

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