November NPD results are interesting for once

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For the past few years November and December have been completely dominated by Nintendo. It seemed like a given each holiday season that Nintendo was touting record breaking numbers and impressively dominating margins between themselves and the competition. This year we had the first holiday season for Move and Kinect, Sony’s and Microsoft’s respective motion control peripherals. Both companies have been spinning PR  like crazy trying to look like the clear cut winner, but the NPD was able to shed some light on how things actually played out. One thing that was for sure, Kinect had some serious buzz going into the month. Here are the top 10 games for the month.

  1. Call of Duty: Black Ops – 360, PS3,Wii, PC, DS
  2. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood – 360, PS3
  3. Just Dance 2 – Wii
  4. Madden NFL 11 – 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP
  5. Fable 3 – 360
  6. Donkey Kong Country Returns – Wii
  7. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit – 360, PS3, Wii, PC
  8. Gran Turismo 5 – PS3
  9. NBA 2K11 – 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, PC
  10. Wii Fit Plus – Wii

Hardware isn’t reported, but it’s been clear based on NPD summaries that the Xbox 360 had the biggest month of all, selling 1.37 million consoles, thanks to the Kinect. The DS was the biggest hardware seller at 1.5 million, but that shouldn’t diminish what the 360 did at all. Sony’s numbers haven’t been put out at this time, and I don’t think we’ll get them as they’re surely under what Microsoft already shared. Kinect bundles were reported to have sold 5 to 1 in comparison with the Move.

The things that really stand out is that Call of Duty: Black Ops broke the sales record with 8.4 million sold, Gran Turismo 5 sort of stuttered, Wii Fit Plus is still on people’s minds, and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood did better than expected. Based on actual NPD reports, it seems that the Kinect really had a big impact and the big marketing push really put it into the forefront of shoppers’ minds over the Move. It will be interesting to see how the momentum holds up through 2011 and if it will end up extending the life of the generation or not.