The total market was worth US$1.3 billion in January, which is up 13 percent on January 2008, according to data from NPD Group. Software sales accounted for just over half of the market at $677 million, a rise of 10 percent on the year, while hardware sales rose 17 percent to $445 million. The remainder of the market was accounted for by accessory sales.

"At this point in the console lifecycle, we would expect to see a greater percentage of total industry sales generated by software sales, but the continued strength in hardware sales is changing that scenario a bit," the company said in a statement. "This will have a long-term positive impact on the industry as the user base expands."

Nintendo's Wii was again the top console of the month. A total of 679,200 consoles were sold during the month -- more than double that of the Xbox 360 and three times that of the PlayStation 3 -- while "Wii Fit," "Wii Play" and "Mario Kart" were the top three ranked software titles. The games sold a respective 777,000, 415,000 and 292,000 copies in the month.

The second-ranked Xbox 360 saw sales of 309,000 consoles while PlayStation 3 sales were 203,200 units, NPD said.

In the handheld sector, the DS sold 510,800 units easily beating the PlayStation Portable, which saw sales of 172,300 units in January, according to the report.