The sales numbers for August are here, and while the overall industry decline continues—sales are down 14 percent year to date—hardware sales are seeing a slight uptick after both Microsoft and Sony dropped the price on their respective systems. "The price cuts implemented on the PS3 and 360 hardware already made an impact on unit sales, despite having been executed fairly late in the month. It will be interesting to see the full impact of the new price points on September sales," NPD analyst Anita Frazier wrote in the report. Every system saw a jump over July sales. Who did the best? "The PS3 captured the greatest increase month-over-month with unit sales boosted by 72 percent over July levels."

Let's take a look at how the month shook out.

Nintendo

The Wii sold 277,000 units in August, and the Nintendo DS 552,900 units. That was easily enough to take the top two slots in hardware sales, although the Wii's lead is rapidly shrking.

Nintendo also doesn't have quite the stranglehold on software that we're used to. Wii Sports Resort with the MotionPlus Peripheral came in second place with 754,000 units sold, and there is no more Nintendo product on the list until we come to Wii Fit in eighth place with 128,000 units sold. Mario Kart on the Wii came in ninth place with 120,000 in sales, and newcomer Fossil Fighters took the number 10 slot with 92,000 in sales.

It shows how dominant Nintendo has become when a month with four titles in the top ten is considered a step backwards.

Microsoft

The Xbox 360 sold 215,400 units in August, only 5,400 more than the PlayStation 3 in the same month. That's also only a small bump from last month, where the system sold 202,900 units of hardware. Keep in mind the 360 had almost no time to see a bump from the late-month price drop, where Sony had an extra week to benefit from the price point.

Madden NFL 10 took the number one slot with 928,000 in sales. Batman: Arkham Asylum took the number four slot with 303,000 in sales; no other 360 games made the top ten list.

Sony

Sony dropped the price of the PlayStation 3 to $300 on August 19, and that apparently spurred sales as the PS3 sold 210,000 units, around 90,000 more than in July. The PlayStation 2 sold 105,900, and the PlayStation Portable sold 140,300 units.

Sony was able to chart an impressive amount of software in August as well. Madden NFL 10 come in the number three slot with 665,000 units, and Batman: Arkham Asylum came in fifth place with 290,000. Madden NFL 10 on the PS2 also charted in sixth place with 160,000 sold. The PSP even had a piece of software in seventh place with Dissida: Final Fantasy selling 130,000 units.

Sony is bragging about its performance. "Our top retailers have reported a 300 percent lift in PS3 hardware sales and an increase of 140 percent in total hardware revenue across the PlayStation portfolio when comparing the first week of September to the week before the $299 price adjustment," the company claims. Time to open the champagne.

"The PS3 was the only platform to realize a year-over-year increase in total software sales and this is reflected in the top 10 list for the month which includes two PS3 games," Frazier pointed out.

It used to be the blockbusters did all their business on the 360, but now we can clearly see the big name games selling very competitively on the PS3. Arkham Asylum benefited from strong exclusive content, and Madden has always been a strong brand on Sony's systems. This is good news for all things PlayStation.

Conclusions?

The economy is starting to give the game industry a beating, but Sony seems to have gained some momentum in the console race. It will be fascinating to see how the sales pan out once both systems have had an entire month to enjoy their respective price drops.

The good news is that Sony is charting games, and catching up with the 360 in terms of monthly hardware sales and software sales of the big games. The numbers for September will be very interesting indeed.