Call of Duty 4, Super Mario Galaxy Lead November Sales

Call of Duty 4 for the Xbox 360 outsold Nintendo's planet-hopping plumber in Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii by nearly half a million copies, according to NPD's US November 2007 game sales figures. Following closely in third and fourth place: Assassin's Creed for the Xbox 360 and Guitar Hero III for the PlayStation 2.

"Assassin's Creed has earned a spot in the history books as the best-selling new IP at launch, besting the previous record held by Gears of War," said industry analyst Anita Frazier. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal (Rainbow Six: Vegas) Assassin's Creed is a third-person stealth game in which players assume the role of a medieval assassin who must acrobatically navigate complex twelfth-century environments and outsmart sophisticated crowd-based AI.

No surprise, the Nintendo DS and Wii both soared to the top of the hardware sales charts, maintaining their lock on the first and second sales spots respectively, including the second best sales month of the year for the DS. The Xbox 360 did brisk business -- also it's second best sales month for 2007 -- with over three-quarters of a million Xbox 360s, and even Sony's PlayStation Portable managed to kick past the half a million mark.

Sony's PlayStation 2 outsold its younger sibling again, though sales of Sony's beleaguered PlayStation 3 were the highest all year, with Frazier suggesting the price cut and seasonal lift were behind the PS3 achieving "the biggest October to November sales increase of any hardware platform." While Sony's still losing money on sales of the PS3, the company's aggregate hardware sales are on par with the Nintendo DS at 1.53m across the PlayStation franchise.

Overall, it's cork-popping news for the industry in general, with sales marked off at December 1st already 5% over 2006 entire. "With the biggest month of the year yet to go, total industry sales are on track to achieve between $18B and $19B in the U.S.," said Frazier. By comparison, U.S. combined hardware, software, and accessories sales topped out at $12.5B in 2006. That would mean $5B to $6B more in sales, or a 26% to 39% sales increase over last year's December sales of $3.7B.

November 2007 Hardware Sales (units)

1.53m - Nintendo DS
981k - Nintendo Wii
770k - Xbox 360
567k - PlayStation Portable
496k - PlayStation 2
466k - PlayStation 3

November 2007 Top 10 Video Games (units)

1.57m - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360)
1.12m - Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
980k - Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360)
967k - Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2)
564k - Wii Play w/Remote (Wii)
473k - Mass Effect (Xbox 360)
444k - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3)
426k - Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS3)
387k - Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
377k - Assassin's Creed (PS3)

Comments

Wow, they are still selling more PS2's than PS3's!

jetnine

December 14, 2007

7:25 AM PT