NPD has announced their sales figures for the busy holiday season and the results were a very pleasant surprise for the industry. Hardware was king this holiday season, though, surprisingly, it was the two recently launched consoles (the Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3) which carry the biggest disappointments.

Nintendo, as expected, destroyed their competition, but it wasn’t thanks to the Wii, which sold a respectable (but still disappointing) 604.2K units bringing it’s LTD up to 1.1 million in the US. It appears to me that shortages hurt here, though nowhere near as much as the shortages and lackluster interest in the PS3 has hurt Sony. The DS hand held however, cleaned house, selling a breathtaking 1.6 million units for December, solidifying Nintendo’s hold in the hand held race and giving thrifty parents a perfectly priced stocking stuffer for their kids.

Microsoft fared quite well, with the Xbox 360 clocking in with 1.1 million units, with Gears of War becoming a new “Halo-like” franchise for the strongest running next-generation console so far.

Sony are clocking in with surprising results. PS2 post major numbers, selling a whopping 1.4 million consoles. Whether this is actually a good thing remains to be seen. It appears the PS2 is still running quite strong, which may point to a lack of interest or lack of affordability to the PS3. I don’t know how proud Sony could be of having their last generation machine tearing into the customer base which should be purchasing their new console, but, income is income and right now they certainly aren’t making anything off of the PS3. More good news for Sony followed with the PSP, which showed a stronger than expected sell through, posting 953K units, surprising those who can’t figure out a reason to even turn their PSP on anymore. On to the PS3, which posted better than expected numbers, but still pointed to a worrying start for the more than half a grand machine. With 490.7K units (687.3K LTD) the PS3 showed that it’s supply problems were holding it back, but those are rumored to be clearing up.

Overall, total hardware sales rang up to $4.6 billion USD (up 42.8%) and software amounted to $6.5 billion USD (up 6.4%).

Read more: NPD analysis by GameDaily Biz

Our favorite Xbox Live Arcade blog covers the sales of some of our most favorite games and it seems to have been quite a great year for Live Arcade titles, a great sign, especially if the rumors of Microsoft’s owning this holiday season’s console sales are any indication. On the list, we can see that quite a lot of people played the free copy of Hexic HD included with every XBox 360 purchased and it’s refreshing to see UNO, one of the most un-Xbox style games you could imagine, being at the top of the 360′s game sales stats!

2006 Top Xbox 360 Titles (UU’s)
2 Hexic HD
9 UNO
12 Geometry Wars Evolved
14 Texas Hold ‘em

2006 Top Arcade Titles (Purchased)
1 UNO
2 Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting
3 Geometry Wars Evolved
4 Marble Blast Ultra
5 PAC-MAN
6 DOOM
7 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
8 GALAGA
9 Gauntlet
10 Frogger
11 Bankshot Billiards 2
12 SmashTV
13 Contra
14 Zuma
15 Texas Hold ‘em
16 Bejeweled 2
17 Feeding Frenzy
18 Small Arms
19 Cloning Clyde
20 LUMINES LIVE!

Every Xbox 360 owner is anticipating the next version of Halo, coming soon(ish) from Bungie and Microsoft. Lately, MS and Bungie have been releasing teaser documentaries and behind the scenes looks into the ongoing development of the title, including it’s upcoming changes and storylines. This video shows the first ever gameplay footage of a pre-alpha build, in between interviews with artists and animators who are discussing the changes to the Brutes which will be coming to Halo 3. Cute, grumpy, fuzzy monsters no more, the Brutes are becoming full on, agile war machines!

Sit back and watch after the jump..

Read more of “Documentary on Halo 3 Brute changes and pre-alpha gameplay footage“

An amusing story by way of N’Gai at Newsweek, where he’s reminiscing on an amusing bet between him, several other members of the press and Microsoft’s Chief XNA Architect, J Allard, in 2004 regarding Sony’s soon to be announced PSP hand held console. The wager was over J’s belief that the PSP would be a resounding failure, stating in pure Allard fashion, “You can sell 500,000 units of anything!”. Always up for a bit of fun, the gaming press made J a wager, if the PSP reached 10 million units shipped worldwide within 12 months (same as the PS2) Allard would have to wear a dreadlocks wig for the entire month of May, including the week of E3 2006. If the PSP fizzled and failed, the journalists (some of whom sport quite a nice set of natural dreads) would shave their heads, on stage, during the Xbox E3 press conference, in front of 1500 attendees. Ever the gamer, J took the bet, only, didn’t seem to follow through. E3 came and went, J looked as snazzy as ever, but, there was no sign of J sporting those dreads. For shame J, for shame!

Read more: J Allard’s dreaded gamble

Microsoft announced their quarterly results recently, with some very good news for their Interactive Gaming division (Xbox, Xbox 360). Their gaming division were happy to see their results more than double thanks to the Xbox 360 momentum, inferring that Microsoft’s head start this generation is helping them create a solid customer base in anticipation of the PS3.

Some finer of the finer points from Microsoft’s Gamerscore blog after the jump..

· Xbox 360 will be available in 36 countries for the holiday and our installed base through September is 6 million consoles worldwide (3.6 million in North America, 1.7 million in Europe and approximately 700,000 in the rest of the world.)

· As such, Xbox 360 is in an excellent position for the second quarter. By holiday 2006, we expect to have sold more than 10 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide and have a catalog of 160 high-definition games. Our yearly guidance still implies that by the end of the fiscal year we expect to have sold 13 to 15 million Xbox 360 consoles since launch.

· Key profit drivers for the platform include Xbox 360 software and accessory attach rates, which remain very strong relative to previous console launches. The Xbox 360 accessory attach rate remains the highest ever for the first ten months after a console launch in the US, holding at 2.9 accessory units sold per console (Source: NPD). Software attach rates rose to a record 5.1 units per console (Source: NPD).

· With the impending releases of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player, the Xbox 360 Wireless Headset, and the Xbox 360 Wireless Racing wheel accessory attach rates are expected to continue their momentum into the second quarter and beyond.

· Xbox Live now boasts a community of more than 4 million members worldwide, with more than 6 million expected by June 2007. Xbox Live Marketplace, the one-stop digital download center, has seen more than 70 million downloads since launch including Xbox Live Arcade games, content packs, demos, and other media. To date, there have been a staggering 12 million Xbox Live Arcade downloads. All told, more than 2 billion Microsoft points have been sold to date.

Read more: Microsoft results at Gamerscore blog

Microsoft’s online service, Xbox Live, announced yesterday that they’ve reached the 4 million subscriber mark, with projections showing more than 6 million by June 2007. Yet still it takes me ±15 minutes to actually get an online Street Fighter match going. Currently, Xbox Live is the largest platform for high-def, on-demand content and pulls a 24% trial-to-purchase rate. Not too shabby, but Microsoft has always led the way with their online service and I seriously doubt Sony or Nintendo will be able to build a better system.

Read more: Xbox Live reaches 4 million subscribers

The almighty Dig Dug is now available on Xbox Live Arcade, sporting some enhanced new features which almost makes you not feel bad paying to play a 24 year old game on a next-generation gaming console. The game features enhanced graphics including HDTV support (480p & 720p), 12 Xbox Live Achievements and an online leaderboards, so you can compete against your friends and family for only 400 Xbox Live points.

Read more: Dig Dug on Xbox Live Arcade

Several weeks ago, Microsoft launched their Xbox 360 console in India and though the price is outrageous in relation to India’s GDP, their marketing campaign is accessible to everyone, even me! Featuring Akshay Kumar and Yuvraj Singh, everything about this commercial is great. The cinematography is beautiful, with exaggerated colors to match the exaggerated people running, jumping and er, stretching around the “homeland”. It sure beats the Austrian and German ads, which have to be the dryest, most boring ads I’ve seen.

Watch the Indian Xbox 360 commercial after the jump..
Read more of “I love the Indian Xbox 360 commercial“

Alan Wake, the follow-up from Remedy after their hit releases of Max Payne, is beginning to look like the tech demo / postergame for Microsoft’s next-generation gaming platforms. With more information starting to surface about the game (well, minus any real gameplay information), the screenshots being released are starting to look more and more amazing with every new shot released. This time, we have a few new environment shots, though, no official word on whether they are for the Xbox 360 (we’d be REALLY amazed if they were for the 360) or Vista PC. Showing some of the greatest environmental lighting I’ve ever seen, I’m getting more excited about this title every time I see it. Let’s just hope Remedy does a little bit more with their character animation this time around, cause, come no, no next-gen title can be feature a main character as stiff as Max Payne.

Screenshots after the jump..

Read more of “New Alan Wake screenshots are absolutely breathtaking“

Well, that was shocking. Cryptic, Marvel Entertainment and Microsoft Game Studios today announced that Cryptic has been tapped to develop Marvel’s upcoming MMO, Marvel Universe Online, which will be released for the Xbox 360(!!) and Windows Vista, presumably next year. This is a shock because it was only a short time ago that Marvel Entertainment (and DC Comics) had Cryptic and NCsoft in their sights, accusing both of allowing users to infringe on their respective copyrights, by allowing users of NCsoft MMO City of Heroes to create characters resembling well-known Marvel and DC brands. I’m sure somewhere in South Korea, an NCsoft executive is throwing things at the poor intern who has to break this piece of bad news. How this will affect NCsoft is unknown yet, but, I can only imagine that with the release of Marvel Online Universe, NCsoft had better be planning a way around the potential fallout, as City of Heroes and City of Villains players abandon ship to play as Marvel-created super heroes. Though, whether players will actually get to play as Wolverine or Spider-Man remains to be seen.

Read more: Marvel and Microsoft announce Cryptic as Marvel Universe Online developer | Cryptic’s open letter to their fans