November was a great month for hardware sales, but it was even better for software, with sales up 62 percent to an incredible $1.3 billion. These days, it's in high fashion to "claim" titles in NPD's top ten chart as victories for the related consoles. In days past, this was only done with exclusives, but competition now has the big three grabbing for anything they can use. If the console maker didn't make these top thn titles, then all credit should be going to the developer and publisher, right?
You have to give much of November's credit to Infinity Ward and Activision, as Call of Duty 4 dominated the November 2007 sofware sales charts. The Xbox 360 version ranked No. 1 with 1.57 million units sold, and the PS3 version came in at No. 7, adding an additional 444,000 units to the total. NPD's Anita Frazier told Gamasutra that CoD4 managed to take the 4th spot in year-to-date sales with only one month under its belt. Nice job, IW!
Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed had an amazing first month, selling more than 1.35 million units total, coming in at both 3rd and 10th places on the charts for the Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively. Frazier says that this makes Assassin's Creed the best-selling IP at launch ever, beating out Gears of War.
Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy took 2nd place, with 1.12 million units sold. Between this and Wii Play (564,000), Nintendo takes the lead with first party game sales. Their only competition was Microsoft, with Halo 3 and Mass Effect (yes, it's Microsoft published) still going strong.
Finally, two versions of Guitar Hero III made the charts at numbers 4 (PS2) and 8 (Wii), but Rock Band just missed the top ten, coming in at number twelve. As the hockey coach told Happy Gilmore, "Better luck next year."
Check out the top ten after the jump.
1.
Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360, Activision) - 1.57 million
2.
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) - 1.12 million
3.
Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360, Ubisoft) - 980k
4.
Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock w/guitar (PlayStation 2, Neversoft/Budcat/Activision) 967k
5.
Wii Play w/remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 564k
6.
Mass Effect (Xbox 360, Microsoft) - 473k
7.
Call of Duty 4 (PS3, Activision) - 444k
8.
Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock w/guitar (Wii, Neversoft/Vicarious Visions/Activision) - 426k
9.
Halo 3 (Xbox 360, Microsoft) - 387k
10.
Assassin's Creed (PS3, Ubisoft) - 377k
Contest:
12:08 AM on 12.14.2007
| 
That’s a lot of disappointed gamers. OH SNAP!
Well, I’m glad the PS3 had some games on there...and I helped! I was one of the 444,000 who picked up CoD 4 (yay Black Friday!).
Also, for those wondering about Rock Band like me, from the article:
"Rock Band sold 382K units across the 360 and PS3 platforms.While some may view this as disappointing, keep in mind thatinitial shipments were limited, and this is the kind of title that can easily build momentum in December and beyond as word of mouth spreads."
It is nice to see the top 2 slots occupied by deserving games though.
I bought it also, I haven't touched GH3 in weeks =).
@Harknett
I dunno, people kept talking about it's "low sales" and things like that.
Mass Effect sold really well considering it was only out for 10 days in November.
Two PS3 games in the top 10! I believe that's the first time it has happened. Neither were exclusives, though.
It is expected that Uncharted didn't sell more. It's one of those games that won't appeal to the mainstream like CoD4 and Assassin's. Remember, Shadow of the Colossus was considered a great game, too, but also didn't sell well. Ratchet and Clank ToD didn't even break 100k units its first month, and it's considered by some to be the best PS3 game to date. It's also not as mainstream.