Jan 18, 2008, 20:20 GMT
San Francisco - Sales of video game consoles and software rose 43 per cent to a record-setting 17.89 billion dollars in 2007, according to new data Friday from research firm NPD Group.
The stellar performance was capped over the holiday period when the hot-selling game system the Nintendo Wii sold 1.4 million units.
Its competitors, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3, also enjoyed their best holiday season. Microsoft sold nearly 1.3 million 360s while Sony sold about 800,000 PS3s.
The Wii's US sales for the year reached 6.3 million units. That compares to 4.6 million for the Xbox 360 and nearly 2.6 million units for the PS3, according to NPD data.
In total the Wii has sold 7.4 million units in the US, the Xbox 360, which launched a year earlier has sold 8.5 million units and the PS3 has sold just 2.8 million units.
Sales of game software totaled more than 8.6 billion dollars for the year, up 34 per cent from the previous year. Microsoft's Halo 3 was the year's best-selling game, selling 4.8 million units. Wii Play moved more than 4.1 million units for the year while Call of Duty 4 sold three million units.
Among handheld devices, the Nintendo DS was the top seller with 8.5 million in sales for the year compared to 3.8 million for the Sony PSP.
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