• Los Angeles Times, Friday, December 12, 2008 11:45 AM

The video game industry continues to shrug off the recession, NPD Group says, posting a sales increase of 10% in the past month to $2.91 billion, up from $2.64 billion in November 2007. The research group described the industry's continued growth as "blistering." NPD Games analyst Anita Frazier noted that the increase was particularly impressive considering that there was one less week for post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping this year than last year.

"With $16 billion realized for the year so far through November, the industry is still on pace to achieve total year revenue of $22 billion in the U.S.," Frazier said. So far this year, software sales have grown 31%, while hardware has grown 14%. Frazier said the lower hardware growth reflects lower prices of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.

Nintendo, of course, continues to be the big winner, having sold more than 2 million Wii consoles and 1.57 million of its handheld console, the DS, in November. Microsoft came in second, selling 836,000 Xbox 360 consoles, while Sony came in last with 378,000 PlayStation3s, 206,000 PS2s and 421,000 PSPs. Nintendo also dominated the list of best selling games, taking four spots in the top 10, although top spot went to the Xbox 360's "Gears of War 2" (1.56 million copies sold).

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