Football Scores EA Top Spot

Video-games publisher Electronic Arts(ERTS) regained its top spot on the monthly video games chart in July with its football game, even as Sony(SNE) saw its $100 price cut for the PlayStation 3 console pay off.

Sony sold 159,000 PS3s in July, compared with 98,469 the month before, according to data from market research firm The NPD Group. The company lowered the price of the PS3 to $499 on July 8.

Sony's success coincided with Electronic Arts' comeback on the charts.

Electronic Arts, which had lost the top spot to rival Activision(ATVI) in June, ruled the July charts with its NCAA Football 08 game for Microsoft's(MSFT) Xbox 360 consoles.

Activision came in second with its Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s game for Sony's PlayStation 2.

NCAA Football 08 from EA for the Xbox 360 sold 397,000 copies, while Activision sold 339,000 copies of its Guitar Hero game for the PS2.

Despite the summer slowdown, video games sales -- hardware, software and accessories -- continued to get the attention of consumers. Overall video-game industry sales rose 77% to $925.7 million in July, compared with $675.6 million the same month year-before.

In the year to date, industry sales are up 43% to $7 billion from the same period in 2006.

"At this pace, the industry is on track to ring up $16 billion to $18 billion for the year," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst for The NPD Group.