Gears of War 2 tops NPD's November software charts, while Wii hits just over 2 million units in sales

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The NPD Group has released its industry sales report for November, and things were picking up ahead of this month's shopping rush. North America's gaming business almost scored $3 billion USD in sales, a 10 percent increase from November 2007's results. Both console hardware and software sales hit over $1 billion USD, which helped give last month's figures a boost over October's relatively sluggish performance.

November 2008 US Games Industry Summary
Total Sales - $2.91 billion USD
Hardware Sales - $1.21 billion USD
Software Sales - $1.45 billion USD
Accessory Sales - $255.4 million USD

November 2008 US Hardware Sales

	Platform	Unit Sales	Unit Sales per Week	Year-to-Date	Lifetime-to-Date
1.	Nintendo Wii	2,040,000	510,000	8,020,000	15,391,000
2.	Nintendo DS	1,570,000	392,500	6,911,000	24,463,000
3.	Microsoft Xbox 360	836,000	209,000	3,308,400	12,449,000
4.	Sony PlayStation Portable	421,000	102,250	2,809,100	13,227,000
5.	Sony PlayStation 3	378,000	94,500	2,318,800	6,062,000
6.	Sony PlayStation 2	206,000	51,500

You probably didn't need any confirmation that Nintendo's Wii would come out on top again in November, so the meatier story will be how it reached over 2 million units in sales. The console's crazy performance during the Thanksgiving week shopping period no doubt played a big part in cementing its lead over the competition, and it's further confirmation that Nintendo is seriously ramping its Wii output. Sales for Nintendo's DS meanwhile topped 1.5 million units, as if the Mario Factory needed more cash. None of the other consoles managed to break the 1 million unit mark last month, though Microsoft was clearly not lying when its boasted selling double the number of home consoles Sony did last month.

November 2008 US Software Sales

	Title	Platform	Publisher	Release	Unit Sales
1.	Gears of War 2	Xbox 360	Microsoft	2008/11/07	1,560,000
2.	Call of Duty: World at War	Xbox 360	Activision Blizzard	2008/11/11	1,410,000
3.	Wii Play	Wii	Nintendo	2007/02/12	796,000
4.	Wii Fit	Wii	Nintendo	2007/05/19	697,000
5.	Mario Kart Wii	Wii	Nintendo	2008/04/27	637,000
6.	Call of Duty: World at War	PS3	Activision Blizzard	2008/11/11	597,000
7.	Guitar Hero: World Tour	Wii	Activision Blizzard	2008/10/26	475,000
8.	Left 4 Dead	Xbox 360	Electronic Arts	2008/11/17	410,000
9.	Resistance 2	PS3	Sony	2008/11/04	385,000
10.	Wii Music	Wii	Nintendo	2008/10/20	297,000

Perhaps equally unsurprising is Xbox 360 titles topping the software sales charts, and number one during November was easily Gears of War 2. It's global sales were already top dog less than a week after its early November launch.  The only other title to break the 1 million unit sales mark was the 360 release of Call of Duty: World at War. Indeed, Activision ought to be pleased with their showing last month, as the third party publisher had the most number of titles in the software top ten excluding Nintendo's first party offerings. The remaining titles in the top five still scored well over 500,000 units in sales and yes, they're all Wii games.

Left 4 Dead wasn't, well, left for dead and managed to break into NPD's November top ten, which is a pleasant surprise for fans of the well-received co-op shooter. In fact it's the only title from Electronic Arts to make the charts last month, though the mega publisher faced a similiar situation back in October with Dead Space just barely making the charts.  It still beat Sony's Resistance 2, which also made a fairly modest November debut.

It is still too early to tell if Nintendo's Wii Music is starting to live up to Nintendo's claims of being one of its coveted "evergreen" titles which achieve success through steadier sales over a longer period of time. However, it barely managed to redeem its disappointing performance back in October by making it into an NPD software sales chart for the first time since launch. Sony's LittleBigPlanet unfortunately fell off the charts completely in November. We'll have to wait and see for ourselves how both titles will pan out in the coming weeks.