Looks like Nintendo executives are rolling around in more money than ever if the NPD numbers for the month of November are any indication. Apparently the Wii sold over two million units in the U.S. which is twice as many as the same month for last year and if you add in the 1.57 million units sales of the Nintendo DS for November, you have some very happy people over at Nintendo.

Hardware and accessories brought in $2.91 billion for the month with console and handhelds claiming $1.21 billion of that figure.

Here are the top selling consoles and handhelds for the month of November:

1. Wii – 2.04 million
2. DS – 1.57 million
3. Xbox 360 – 836,000
4. PSP – 421,000
5. PlayStation 3 – 378,000
6. PlayStation 2 – 206,000

The November NPD numbers are in for PC titles for the month, and it should come as no surprise that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is on top–as a matter of fact it takes the top two spots out of the Top 20. If you look through the whole chart though, you will notice that World of Warcraft took five spots which is an indication that its popularity shows no wane in sight.

Call of Duty: World at War for the PC came in third, with Spore still pulling in the gamers and resting at number four, and Left 4 Dead took the number 8 spot which is a decent slot considering the PC powerhouses that are present on the chart.

1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector’s Edition
3. Call of Duty: World At War
4. Spore
5. Fallout 3
6. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest
7. The Sims 2 Deluxe
8. Left 4 Dead
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Expansion Pack
10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
11. World of Warcraft
12. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Expansion
13. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy
14. EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey
15. Far Cry 2
16. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
17. BioShock
18. Spore Creepty & Cute Parts Pack
19. IGT Slots: Little Green Men
20. Assassin’s Creed

(Thanks Shacknews)

It looks like a lot of people logging into Xbox Live today are finding a strange holiday surprise. In the Spotlight channel of the NXE, most people can now find a snow globe application that can be launched without the need to download. The simple app displays you and some of your friends’ avatars trapped inside a festive snow globe. You can even push some buttons to shake it up and to shuffle your friends around. It’s pretty simple, but still a neat little feature. This is probably a sign too that you can expect more strange avatar-related applications in the future from Xbox Live.

A new article on ExtremeTech pits antivirus software against some of the most demanding PC games around. AVG Free, BitDefender (GameDefender edition), Kaspersky and Norton (Gaming Edition) each face off against Crysis, Company of Heroes, Far Cry 2, Supreme Commander and World in Conflict.

ExtremeTech compared the performance of each game on a control system with and without each of the antivirus programs running. Between performance and price points you can get a fairly good idea of which of these software options are best for your gaming PC. Check out the final results from Gaming Performance Versus Antivirus Software on ExtremeTech.

With the original Banjo Kazooie patched and live on the Xbox Live Marketplace, gamers have been waiting for a sequel to continue to the popular platformer’s winning streak. Rare’s Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is billed as a fun family game that lets you create your own vehicles from scrounged parts, then race them.

Katharine Fletcher, video podcast host for ChannelFlip, critiques the game meant to be Banjo Kazooie 3 to see if it can possibly live up to the high expectations set by the original.

Read the full article »

The open beta for PlayStation Home starts today, and while not expected to launch completely until next year it has already drawn some raided eyebrows, especially from Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg– who as we all know is one to always speak his mind with no qualms about the reaction to it. His recent criticism of Sony’s PlayStation Home is no exception, and as a matter of fact he thinks it is outdated.

Speaking with Kotaku, Greenberg stated that Home looks like Second Life for hardcore gamers without broadening the players experience or inviting them in:

“What Home to me feels like is Second Life for hardcore gamers. It doesn’t feel like it broadens the experience and invites people in. When they unveiled it, it seemed innovative. I think what’s happened is now here we are a couple of years later and we feel beyond that. It feels like 2005 tech in 2008. I’m not sure that’s what people want.”

He also went on to say that he feels there is still a “huge gap” between what Xbox Live can offer gamers compared to Sony and while Sony’s service is free, Microsoft will not be cutting the subscription prices for member because they are “”willing to pay for the premium experience”.

Anyone else getting sick to death of Microsoft constantly trying to remind people that they are superior to Sony and berating everything they do? Between that and the back and forth between fanboys for each system, it sometimes makes me wish I did not own an Xbox 360.

Major Nelson has given the word that Xbox LIVE subscribers can download a Winter Holiday Theme. The XBL theme is available for all regions and free… for a limited time. The picture above isn’t part of the Winter Holiday theme. I’m still searching to find it loaded on an Xbox dashboard an may post an actual picture later.

Unfortunately, the Winter Holiday Theme download is marked as a XBL Gold exclusive offer on the Marketplace website. For those lucky Gold members, you’re guaranteed snow where ever you live, if only on your Xbox.

Thanks goes out to Xbox Live’s Major Nelson for the tip off.

Electronic Arts is being targeted by another class-action law suit over the DRM included with Spore, SecuROM. This time, California resident Alex McQuown is hoping to use Spore to take down SecuROM once and for all.

The grievances listed in Alex McQuown’s class-action suit against EA are much the same as the other suits with three big differences. His lawyers at Finkelstein Thompson claim that SecuROM damages computers costing consumer time and money to repair the havoc caused by its installation. The suit also asserts that EA has needlessly caused its customers grief. The figures prove that piracy of games that carry SecuROM has risen dramatically. The biggest difference in McQuown’s suit is that he invites every U.S. citizen that has purchased an EA product with SecuROM to join the class.
Read the full article »

Hawty McBloggy is hosting a terrifying contest right now, asking you to vote for the “Fugliest NXE Avatar.” After collecting submissions in what was no doubt a horrible ordeal, there are now seven finalists for you to choose from. Better vote quickly though, since there’s less than twelve hours left in the voting process, and you’ll definitely want to make sure your digital abomination is crowned the winner.

If anything though, this contest at least shows one main difference between the Miis and the Avatars. Even when people tried to make fugly characters on Nintendo’s console, they still looked kind of cute. Not so for the Xbox 360’s Avatars.

You can head over here to cast your vote.

In the spirit of getting the most for your money while buying Holiday gifts this season, ChannelFlip has a video review of the latest party games with peripherals for the Xbox 360. Considering you can’t use most of the peripherals that come with these titles on other games nor can you return them, its good to get an idea of what you, your friends and family might really appreciate. Video host Katharine Fletcher will tell you which of these games are good bets and which would just sit around gathering dust after a couple play throughs.

This time of year you always get lots of gift packs being aimed at the Christmas market. But with gaming gear coming packaged in notoriously nasty non-resealable packaging, picking these up on a whim could land you with a rather expensive and non-returnable white elephant on your hands. So today I’m reviewing Lips, You’re in the Movies, and Scene It.

Some notes…

Lips: Sadly you can’t hear my singing, but rest assured I sounded awesome!
UPDATE: (Oops! I’ve just realized that in the final edit of this we haven’t included a star rating for Lips! I ended up going for 2 stars for this one. As well as the points raised in the review there were also other issues I didn’t have time to mention such as the ‘Import your music’ feature which didn’t work very well, and the fact that you can’t record your singing or use the mics with other 360 music games.)

You’re In the Movies: Please note that the demonstration of using the camera and software to put you in the movie was filmed in our studio in front of walls painted with solid, bright background colour. The quality of the image I got was therefore much better than when I was using this at home with cream coloured walls with pictures and furniture. A lot more of me was accidentally keyed out when I did it at home, as you can see from the film short the game put together with that footage.

Scene It: I have actually played this with a friend since reviewing it and while I noticed repeat questions, we still had really good fun playing it.

Incidentally ChannelFlip has announced that Katharine has been listed as one of Apple U.K.’s top video podcasts of 2008.