Just got the latest monthly report on video-game sales from the NPD Group. Sales were down for the fifth straight month in July, according to the industry tracking firm, off by 14 percent through the same period last year. That puts year-to-date sales at $8.16 billion, NPD says.

“In order for the industry to come in flat or slightly up for the total year, the back five months of the year have to come in 11 percent (or more) higher than the last five months of last year,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier says.

Tonight’s midnight release of Madden NFL 10 could kick-start such a turn-around, followed by big titles such as Rock Band: Beatles, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3: ODST, she says.

“Of all genres, the music/dance genre has suffered the greatest declines this year, with nearly $390 million less revenues than the same time period last year,” she adds.

That’s probably because, based on feedback from people I know who play games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, many gamers never download the hundreds of other songs available online for those titles, so the revenue stream dries up.

I’ll have a preview of big video-game releases for the rest of the year next week.

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