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The NPD numbers covering September (five weeks from August 30th to October 6th to be exact) are out, and the PlayStation 3 price cut to $299 seems to have worked. Microsoft cut their console down to size as well, of course, and even Nintendo decided to take a dip in the profitability of their console with their drop to $199, boosting everyone's numbers, but the PS3 outsold everything except for the DS.

Think those Wii sales numbers have been sagging? Sure the whole industry's been dragging itself along through the middle of this year despite some stellar titles hitting very high marks on non-Nintendo systems, but Nintendo apparently thinks their massive bank of money counting machines needs a workout again.

Sony's uphill battle to raise the visibility of the PS3 and convince gamers of the quality of its titles is getting harder as the economy continues to stay sour in the United States. NPD reports that June 2009 non-PC sales of hardware, software and accessories is down a whopping 31% from June a year ago. That comes down to over $530 million less across all platforms. Ouch.

The considerably larger install base of Microsoft's platform definitely helped it in terms of unit sales over the month with Prototype taking the crown with 419,900 sold. Infamous eked out a mere 192,000 for the month, beating out the PS3 version of Prototype by only about 20,000 units. It has to be something that second-party and third-party developers must be decidedly unhappy about. With no DLC planned for Infamous to bring it back into the limelight I wouldn't guess sales will be going up from here.

Details are on the ChartSpot column at GameSpot.