People spend $1.31 billion in U.S. retail stores on game consoles, games and and accessories in October, according to data from market researcher NPD Group.

That's a gain of 18 percent from the same month a year ago.

Hardware sales climbed 5 percent to $494.7 million, led by the Nintendo Wii, which far outsold every other game machine. Nintendo said it was the biggest October ever for the Wii, which sold 803,000 units during the month.

Nintendo also sold 491,176 units of its DS handheld gaming device in October.

Three games made for Nintendo hardware were ranked in the top five best-selling games of October.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 sold 371,000 units. The console's sales were boosted by a significant price cut in early September. Sony 's PlayStation 3 sold 190,000 units.

Software sales grew 35 percent to $696.8 million, while sales of accessories, which include peripherals for music games like "Guitar Hero," declined 8 percent to $120.3 million.

Microsoft's "Fable II" role-playing game was the month's best-selling title with 790,000 units sold, followed by Nintendo's "Wii Fit" exercise game with 487,000 copies. Other games in the top 10 included Sony's "Little Big Planet," Nintendo's "Wii Play" and "Mario Kart" for the Wii, as well as "Fallout 3" from Bethesda Softworks and "Rock Band 2" from Electronic Arts Inc. and MTV.