Okay, before we start on the CorproBS, here are the North American figures for hardware sales in August as provided by the NPD group (July figures in brackets). If you are really OCD about this, you can also refer to July's figures (which were down) in this story.

If you don't want to waste eye-energy: the Wii wins the Console race. The DS wins the portable race.

Consoles
Wii: 453,000 (666,700)
Xbox 360: 195,200 (204,800)
PlayStation 3: 185,400 (224,900)
PlayStation 2: 144,100 (155,000)

Portables
Nintendo DS: 518,300 (608,400)
PSP: 253,000 (221,700)

Right, as you can see, for the second month running hardware sales are down with the exception of the PSP. It's August. August is the Thursday of months. No one has any money - rather any money that anybody does have is be saved up for November and December (Friday and Saturday).

All that said, all the platform holders are chuffed ('excited') and are probably going forward 24/7 out of the box. Let's see shall we:

Sony's Jack Tretton - Strong!
"We had yet another strong month for PlayStation in August, which validates that consumers are indeed recognizing the long-term value that PS3 offers as both a gaming and home entertainment device."

Nintendo's Cammie Dunnaway- Positive!
"The positive public response to Nintendo DS and Wii has stayed strong throughout 2008."

Microsoft's Person - Sweet!
"We’re on track for a record-breaking holiday with a new sweet spot in pricing and the launch of the New Xbox Experience this fall. At $199, Xbox 360 offers the greatest entertainment value available, with the leading..." Sorry, we got bored.

So, there you go then. Everybody is happy. Possibly Microsoft should be most chuffed with its price cut strategy paying off - at least in terms of overhauling the PS3.

Whether Nintendo's drop in Wii sales this month means that everybody is bored with Wii or simply that... yes, as usual, someone stuffed up the inventory control over at Ninty's manufacturing plants and sent thousands of the units to Uzbekistan instead of the USA will be revealed in due course.

Finally, yes, sales are down - however, NPD's ever reliable Anita Frazier isn't. She comments, "In general, August is a slower month for the industry outside the ever-reliable Madden release."

Absolutely, Anita, who continues, "Despite smaller growth this month, the industry is up 32 percent year-to-date and remains on target to achieve annual revenues in the range of $22 to $24 billion".

Credit Crunch? What Credit Crunch? Of course, one person might not be so chuffed. Analyst Michael Pachter had predicted a 23% rise in software sales for August. We ended up with 10%. But hell, what's that sort of a difference between analyst and clients?

^{Sources:
MCV
GameSpot
AP
Kotaku
CNET}