Surprise: The Wii Ruled 2007 Console Sales

The video game industry's sales in 2007 were higher than any other year at almost $18 billion...and, surprise surprise, the NIntendo Wii took honors as top-selling console.

Market research firm NPD has released its video game sales figures for the month of December and the entire 2007 calendar year, and the numbers show 2007 was a banner year for the video game industry, with total sales of $17.94 billion dollars—that represents a 43 percent improvement over the $12.53 billion consumers spent on games in 2006. For the month of December alone—traditionally the sector’s hottest month—NPD says Americans laid down $4.82 billion on video games, a 28 percent increase from December of 2006.

According to NPD, Nintendo sold 1.35 million Wii consoles during December, bringing total Wii sales for 2007 to 7.4 million. Microsoft sold 1.26 million Xbox 360’s during the month, fueled in part by sales of Activision’s Call of Duty 4 (which itself sold 1.47 million copies during December) and Halo 3, which has sold 4.8 million copies since it’s much-heralded launch in September, making it the top-selling game for 2007. Sony’s PlayStation 3 sold 798,000 units in December, bringing its total installed base to about 3.3 million.

Since introduction, Nintendo has twice boosted production levels for its Wii console, and is now manufacturing 1.8 million units a month. The units can still be hard to find, though, and Nintendo has said it expects to sell even more units in 2008 than it did in 2007.

Where the Wii took top marks for console sales, Microsoft’s Xbox 360—which has been on the market a year longer—has the largest user base in the United States, with nearly 9.2 million units sold since the system was introduced. Microsoft has highlighted that Xbox 360 users spent $4.8 billion during 2007, compared to $3.5 billion on the Wii and $2.2 billion on the PlayStation 3: Microsoft interprets that as "winning" 2007 in revenue terms.

Console battles aside, the Nintendo DS was easily the best-selling gaming system in 2007, moving 8.5 million units during the year (with 2.5 million sold during December alone).