Numbers released by the industry-tracking NPD Group recently for game sales in the month of August prove that analysts were right in prediciting a slow down in growth in the period leading up to the holiday season.

According to the numbers, US retail sales in August are up 9% from figures for the same month last year. This is signficantly less than the 20% rise some analysts were predicting earlier this week, showing that perhaps the slow down could be coming faster than anticipated.

NPD analyst Anita Frasier said that while this was the first time in over two years that the industry had shown only single-digit growth overall, the industry as a whole was still looking strong.

"Despite smaller growth this month, the industry is up 32 percent year-to-date and remains on target to achieve annual revenues in the range of $22 to $24 billion," Frazier said according to gamespot.com.