Wii Still Dominated November Console Sales

The Nintendo Wii still dominated November video game sales, while Activision's Call of Duty 4 was the month's top-selling game, moving more than 2 million copies.

Market analysis firm NPD Group has released its video game industry sales figures for the month of November, and once again the Nintendo Wii easily takes first place as the best-selling video game console for the month, moving 981,000 units computer. The sales total marks the Wii’s strongest month since the console was introduced a year ago, and is 60 percent higher than Wii sales figures for December of 2006.

In comparison, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 managed to sell 770,000 consoles, while Sony’s PlayStation 3 moved 466,000 units—underselling Sony’s PlayStation 2 console, which sold 496,000 units. Nintendo also sold a whopping 1.53 million Nintendo DS handheld gaming devices, while Sony moved 567,000 PlayStation Portables.

Amongst video games, Activision’s Call of Duty 4 took the month’s top-seller slot, with Activision’s Guitar Hero 3 moving 1.9 million copies across the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PS2 platforms. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed sold almost 1.36 million copies for the PS3 and Xbox 360, while Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy sold 1.12 copies for the Wii. Intriguingly, the $170 four-player game Rock Band sold only 382,000 units, but the NPD Group believes sales may pick up as the game gains word-of-mouth momentum.

Overall, the November video game market accounted for sales of over $2.63 billion, a 52 percent gain over the same month last year. “If the year had ended on December 1st, 2007 would be up 5 percent versus last year,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier, in a statement. “With the biggest month of the year yet to go, total industry sales are on track to achieve between $18 billion and $19 billion in the U.S.” Of course, the industry could be even bigger if Nintendo could keep up with actual demand for the Wii console: shortages have analysts estimating Nintendo is missing out on well over a billion dollars on hardware sales alone during the 2007 holiday season.