NBA 2K11 and Fallout: New Vegas owned the number one and number two spots last month, as the NPD Group released their monthly report on sales data for October. While the group no longer releases figures for the top consoles and games, there is some interesting information to glean from the report in regards to the apparent success of PlayStation Move, and more importantly what made the Top 10 list and what didn't.

First off, the games:

Video Game Software Sales, October 2010

1. NBA 2K11 (360, PS3, PS2, PSP, WII, PC), Take 2 Interactive
2. Fallout New Vegas (360, PS3, PC), Bethesda Softworks
3. Medal of Honor (360, PS3, PC), Electronic Arts
4. Fable 3 (360), Microsoft
5. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 (360, PS3, WII, PC, NDS), Lucasarts
6. Halo: Reach (360), Microsoft
7. Just Dance 2 (WII), Ubisoft
8. FIFA Soccer 11 (PS3, 360, WII, PS2, PSP, NDS, PC), Electronic Arts
9. Madden NFL 11 (360, PS3, WII, PS2, PSP), Electronic Arts
10. WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 (PS3, 360, PS2, WII, PSP), THQ

What's most interesting about this breakdown is that, according NPD Analyst Anita Frazier, "At the SKU level, the best-selling game was Fallout: New Vegas from Bethesda on the Xbox 360 platform with sales of  about 679K units, including the collector's edition."  So one platform for Fallout: New Vegas rings in at almost 700,000 units, and NBA 2K11 is still on top. It seems as if the demise of NBA Elite 11 has given a huge boost to the power of NBA 2K11, and we're sure it being an amazing game has everything to do with it selling like hot cakes. Additionally, Microsoft shared some sales data around their titles, with Fable 3 selling 580K versus Halo: Reach's 315K for the month of October.

Also notable was this statement: "Many are interested in how Rock Band 3 fared. Rock Band 3 was the 15th best selling game at the title level (across platforms) for the month of October. Note that this title was launched on Oct. 26, which only represents a few days in our October sales data.  Based on solid reviews, this game has the potential to perform well over the holidays."

Why Frazier calls out Rock Band 3 is noteworthy, because Activision's Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock was a no show on September's NPD results, and still has no presence on the October chart. How the title perfomed is a mystery, but that it never graced the Top 10 speaks again to the continued oversaturation of music games on the market (neither DJ Hero 2 nor Def Jam Rapstar broke into the top 10 either).

Also notably absent are titles like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Vanquish and a personal favorite 'round these parts, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. If Rock Band 3 is 15th, and #6 clocks in at approx. 300K units, that can't fair too well for games outside of the initial 10, much less these games.

Hardware sales also remain a closely-guarded secret, and as it's next to impossible to decipher who is beating whom (which we know ultimately is what you want, you fanboys), I'll let Anita Frazier walk us through the details:

"The best-selling hardware system for the month was the Nintendo DS, while the Xbox 360 was the only platform to realize unit sales improvement over last October...While the PS3 overall did not experience an increase from September to October, the PS3 bundle with Move experienced a 15 percent increase over September 2010...The Xbox 360 has generated the most unit sales among the console platforms on a year-to-date basis as of this month.  The Nintendo DS remains the best-selling hardware system, overall."

So it seems the Nintendo DS is still upfront, which it will be until the end of time, and considering Xbox 360 owned the top spot in September, it's likely that it has retained that advantage in October, despite the PS3's increase due to its continued success with moving Move bundles. In fact, Microsoft has announced that it sold 325K Xbox 360s in October, leading video game consoles in sales for the fifth consecutive month. Across the board, sales were down 4 percent, but to be clear, the NPD group only measures about 70 percent of retail traffic as they do not account for "revenues being generated from digital distribution, used game sales, rentals, social network games and mobile applications to name a few."

We expect to hear some crowing from the big three shortly, so we'll be sure to update you accordingly as they share more info on their crop of games.

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Tags: 2K11, Bethesda, Fallout, Fallout New Vegas, Game, Halo Reach, NBA 2K11, Nintendo DS, NPD Group, Rock Band 3, Wii, Xbox 360

Wow, if this game is anywhere near as good as it looks in the promo material, I expect I'll be sinking a considerable number of hours of my life into playing it. There really hasn't been a top quality epic fantasy game in some time, and this game looks like it could be the one to fill the void.

'Dragon Age: Origins' is your classic good vs mega evil fantasy, complete with all the standard trimmings of ogres, elves, dwarves, mages and dragons. What looks like it will set the game apart though, is the depth of the characters and the complexity of the combat. If you ever wanted to feel as though you were taking part in a vast battle straight out of Lord of the Rings, this might be the game to deliver that experience.

We have plenty more cool trailers and images to come on this game, and you can watch the main trailer from E3 below:

Tags: Dragon Age: Origins, PC Games, PS3 Games, RPG Games, Xbox Games