The latest NPD sales figures for the North American market make for happy reading for Microsoft, Sony less so. Of course Microsoft's happiness must be tempered by the continued dominance of Wii and DS. But here are the hardware unit sales figures for December:

Nintendo DS – 2.5 million (-24%)
Nintendo Wii – 2.36 million (-38% YOY)
Xbox 360 – 1.86 million (+42% YOY)
PlayStation 3 – 1.21 million (-11% YOY)

Perhaps more interesting that the actual unit sales are the pecentage falls and rises compared to December 2009. Xbox 360 saw a massive sales rise compared to the previous year in a market that's fallen by five percent for the year and nine percent comparing December to December. When one combines software, hardware and accessory sales Xbox 360 came out as the leading earner.

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In terms of software 2010's best selling game was also December 2010's best selling game, there's no stopping Call of Duty: Black Ops.

December's Best Selling Games
1, Call of Duty: Black Ops (Treyarch, Activision)
2, Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)
3, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (Blizzard, Blizzard)
4, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft)
5, Donkey Kong: Country Returns (Retro Studios, Nintendo)
6, Disney’s Epic Mickey (Junction Point, Disney)
7, Madden NFL 11 (EA Tiburon, EA Sports)
8, Michael Jackson: The Experience (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)
9, NBA 2K11 (2K Sports, 2K Games)
10, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (Criterion Games, EA Games)

"The dynamics of games content purchasing changed dramatically in 2010 with options ranging from the physical product to digital downloads on connected devices as well as in-store digital kiosks," said NPD's Anita Frazier. "The increasing number of ways to acquire the content has allowed the industry to maintain total consumer spend on content as compared to 2009, and we should expect 2011 to be a growth year in the games industry as the consumer demand for gaming continues to evolve."

So a good month for Microsoft thanks mostly - we suspect - to Kinect. Kinect Sports managed to outsell Gran Turismo 5 which hasn't really done the business one might have hoped. And don't think the month was all about consoles, despite the declining market PC gaming was up three percent, which is nice.

Source: NPD Group