Sales tracking firm The NPD Group has just released its latest report concerning the US videogame industry, this time for the month of November 2011, revealing sales across hardware, software and accessory market segments to be flat year-over-year as revenue rose just 0.4% to roughly $3 billion compared to $2.99 billion in November 2010.

The NPD Group’s Anita Frazier notes:

“While content sales grew substantially thanks to a great slate of new content, a decline in average retail price in all categories with the exception of portable hardware resulted in flat dollar sales even though unit sales grew for console hardware, as well as console, portable, and PC software.”

November 2011 Software Sales

During the month of November 2011 in the US, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 dominated software sales with roughly nine million units sold in this region alone and effortlessly appeared at No. 1 on the sales listing.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the other hand slotted into No. 2 and Frazier notes that the game’s first month performance was “a five-fold increase over [The Elder Scolls IV: Oblivion]’s first month sales.” Skyrim is now only about 500 000 units short of reaching lifetime sales of Oblivion in the US.

Battlefield 3 made another Herculean effort and appeared at No. 3 on the list even in the face of direct competitor Modern Warfare 3. Frazier also revealed that Batman: Arkham City is just short of matching lifetime sales of previous franchise entry, Batman: Arkham City, after only two months at retail.

Additionally, and on a pure SKU (stock-keepers unit) level, Super Mario 3D Land and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary could be included in the top ten list of software sales.

Here’s the full top ten software sales list for November 2011 in the US:

November 2011 Software Sales Chart

• 1.) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PC) +/- 9 million units
• 2.) Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
• 3.) Battlefield 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
• 4.) Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) - +/- 1.26 million units
• 5.) Just Dance 3 (Wii, Xbox 360)
• 6.) Madden NFL 12 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2)
• 7.) Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (PS3) - 700 000 units
• 8.) Saints Row: The Third (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
• 9.) The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) - 600 000 units (first week sales)
• 10.) Batman: Arkham City (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
• Unknown.) Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) – 625 000 units

November 2011 Hardware Sales

For the month of November 2011 in the US, videogame hardware sales were conquered by Xbox 360 with a whopping 1.7 million units sold in the region, as the PlayStation 3 managed just over half of this number with 900 000 units sold during the month.

Frazier notes that this is the fourth consecutive month in which Xbox 360 has been the top-selling hardware platform, and that “[the] gap between 360 sales and sales of the next best selling platform was the largest we’ve seen since December 2008 when the Nintendo DS was the top selling system.”

”The month-over-month sales increase versus October that all systems realized is in line with the range we typically see going into November, so hardware performed in line with typical seasonality trends.”

Here’s the list of console sales figures for November 2011 in the US:

November 2011 Hardware Sales Chart

• Xbox 360 - 1.7 Million (+24%)
• PS3 - 900 000 (+70%)
• Wii – 860 000 (-32%)
• 3DS – 795 000
• NDS – 350 000 (-77%)

November 2011 Videogame Industry Sales Totals

October 30th 2011 through November 26th 2011:

• November 2011 Videogame Sales - $3 billion (+0.4%)
• November 2011 Videogame Hardware Sales - $982.4 million (-9%)
• November 2011 Videogame Software Sales - $1.74 billion (+16%)
• November 2011 Videogame Accessories Sales - $273.8 million (-34%)

Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony and Ubisoft have since released statements responding to NPD’s November 2011 sales report - read over what the ‘Big Three’ (and the French publisher) had to say over here.

Source: NPD