The video game industry in U. S. is starting to break the ice and boasted out a return to growth in September. After six months of contraction in sales, consumers have started to respond to hardware slashed prices and a surge of new and exciting games in the market.

Sales of videogame software and consoles surged 1% to $1.28 billion during the last month, according to data-tracker NPD Group Inc. It was the first rise from the depression struck industry since February.

The sales growth could be credited to the price cut downs by the manufacturers of the 3 major videogame consoles including Sony Corp.'s (SNE) PlayStation 3, Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Xbox
360 and Nintendo Co. Ltd's (NTDOY, 7974. OK) Wii.

Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America quoted, "We envisioned the reaction would be positive, but it even exceeded our best expectations". On the industry's growth, he added, "To return to growth preholiday is certainly good news."

The comeback was still on the darker side, with what analysts predicted, a grim reminder of the recession, which deeply affected consumer spending on interactive entertainment. Even recent console price cuts weren't sufficient to push hardware dollar sales up year-over-year and they still carry on struggling. Hardware sales fell 6%to $472.3 million.

Among the basking video game segment, for the first time since its introduction 3-years back, Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 sold added units as compared to both the Nintendo Wii and the Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.

The top-selling gaming platform was still the handheld Nintendo DS, for the sixth month consecutively.

The runaway winner among the games was : Microsoft's "Halo 3: ODST" . It helped push software sales 5% up, to $649.3 million, though this was still well below what many analysts expected. Among the other forerunners, both "The Beatles: Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero 5" stood in the top 10 best-selling games league, along with Nintendo's "Wii Sports Resort" and "Madden NFL
10" for the Xbox 360.