Though the vidgame industry has been experiencing its own declines in the face of the recession, September sales have shown a slight improvement from last year, according to market researcher The NPD Group.

Overall dollar sales rang in at US$1.28 billion, a 1% change from September 2008’s US$1.27 billion. Though there was a bit of an uptick, industry analyst Anita Frazier notes that the unit sales basis was flat and ‘driven by a rise in average retail prices in all categories,’ excluding console hardware.

That’s because Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have lowered the prices on the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360, respectively. And for the first month, the PS3 topped console hardware sales (491,800) as a result of its price decrease in August, seeing a 70% lift over the previous month. It was followed by the Wii (462,800), then 360 (352,600), though the Nintendo DS was still the best-selling platform overall with sales of 524,200.

Microsoft’s Halo 3:ODST scored the top SKU spot for September with 1.52 million units sold, followed by Wii Sports Resort (442,900), packaged with the Wii MotionPlus accessory. Rounding out the top five are Madden NFL 10 (EA), Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (Nintendo of America) and The Beatles: Rock Band (MTV Games/EA).