VentureBeat has the NPD group's report on July retail videogame sales figures, showing the predicted sharp declines. Overall, sales for the month dropped 26%, which they say is the industry's worst month since 2006, though they point out: "While it may seem like the game industry is in a funk, these sales numbers reflect only retail sales. Other digital sales – including used games, rentals, online games, mobile games and social games — show constant growth." Here are some numbers for your crunching pleasure:

Total video game hardware, software, and accessory sales at retail stores were $707.7 million in July, down 26 percent from $961.3 million a year ago. Overall console video game sales (excluding PC games) were $687 million, down 20 percent from $855.3 million a year ago.

Game hardware sales were $223 million, down 29 percent from $313.8 million a year ago. And game software sales were $336.2 million, down 17 percent from $403.3 million a year ago. Accessory sales, which in earlier months this year were up thanks to strong sales of Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensing system, were $127.8 million, down 8 percent from $183.1 million a year ago.

If you throw in the sales of PC, console and portable games, the total is $356.9 million, down 30 percent from $509.3 million a year ago. That means that PC games are also suffering pretty bad right now.