NPD News: November Sales Numbers

Bad economy? What bad economy?

Despite terrifying news to the contrary, it appears that the economy (at least in the land of videogames) did quite well for what is typically the biggest shopping month of the year. The industry as a whole grew ten percent over 2007, rising from 2.64 billion in sales to 2.91 billion in total sales for this November. The same goes for videogame hardware sales which were up 10 percent from 1.1 billion to 1.21 billion, as well as videogame software which is up 11 percent from 1.31 billion to 1.45 billion. Add hardware, software and accessories sales together and thus far in 2008 people have spent 22 percent more this year than last, totaling out at 16.04 billion as opposed to 13.14 billion this time last year.

But now for the section that everyone wants to know about: console sales. Here's the breakdown:

PlayStation 2 – 206K
PlayStation 3 – 378K
PSP – 421K
Xbox 360 – 836K
Wii – 2.04 Million
Nintendo DS – 1.57 Million

The biggest surprise in all those statistics is that Xbox 360 more than doubled the sales of PlayStation 3, despite both systems seeing monster titles release this past month. Of course, looking at the software breakdown reveals the reason why. Here are the top 10 selling videogames for the month of November 2008:

1. Gears of War 2 - Xbox 360
2. Call of Duty: World at War - Xbox 360
3. Wii Play w/Remote - Wii
4. Wii Fit - Wii
5. Mario Kart - Wii
6. Call of Duty: World at War - PS3
7. Guitar Hero World Tour - PS3
8. Left 4 Dead - Xbox 360
9. Resistance 2 - PS3
10. Wii Music - Wii