Nintendo consoles take top honours in the US for May 09, according to the latest NPD Group figures. Otherwise, the Stateside games market seems to have taken a bit of a downturn...

A sizeable one, at that – 23% down compared to May 08, or, in more tangible terms, sales of $863.3million from the $1.12billion earned just 12 months earlier. That’s the first time monthly sales revenues have dipped below the billion marker since August 07. NPD analysts have highlighted that May is generally a poor month for games, though.

But back to the hardware, where the DS rules the roost by a very comfortable margin, followed by the Wii in a not very close second place. Meanwhile the rest of the competition is pretty much nowhere in comparison. Least of all the PSP, which barely scraped 100K sales. Anyway, here’s how it all looks:

Nintendo DS – 633.5K
Wii – 289.5K
Xbox 360 – 175K
PlayStation 3 – 131K
PlayStation 2 – 117K
PSP 100.4K

And here’s what America was playing in May. It's another good result for THQ with two top ten placings for UFC 2009 Undisputed and the lion’s share of sales on Xbox 360:

UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360 – 679.6K)
Wii Fit (Wii – 352.8K)
EA Sports Active (Wii – 345.8K)
UFC 2009 Undisputed (PS3 – 334.4K)
inFamous (PS3 – 175.9K)
Pokemon Platinum (DS – 168.9K)
Mario Kart Wii (Wii – 158.3K)
Punch Out!! (Wii – 156.9K)
X-Men Origins Wolverine Uncaged Edition (Xbox 360 – 120.7K)
Wii Play (Wii – 109.8K)