U.S. video game sales declined for the twelfth consecutive month falling 11 percent in the month of November, according to Game Informer report via NPD Group. That's the smallest year-over-year decline this year in both dollar and percentage terms.
"Despite an overall retail video game decline of 11 percent, November had the smallest year-over-year decrease we have seen for dollar and unit sales so far this year," NPD analyst Liam Callahan said. "This is a sign of momentum going into the December holiday period."
There were some triple-A video game titles released during the Month including Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Microsoft's Halo 4 and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed III, which released in the last week of October. But strong sales from all three titles could not end the streak.
But according to NPD, the top five games of this year did sell more than the top five games from the same period last year.
"Overall entertainment software units decreased by 15%, however, when comparing the performance of the top five titles from this year to last, we see a rise in unit sales of 5% - games outside of the top five sold less, leading to overall declines," Callahan said.
Black Ops II has become the fastest selling video game of all times after it grossed $1 billion in just 15 days, according to Activision.
"Since Call of Duty was launched, cumulative franchise revenues from players around the world are greater than current worldwide box office receipts to date for the top-10 grossing films of 2012 combined," Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said in statement. "Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for Harry Potter and Star Wars, the two most successful movie franchises of all time."
Microsoft's Xbox 360 was the top selling console for the month and sold 1.26 million units. Nintendo sold a combined total of 1.75 million hardware units including the Wii, Wii U, DS and 3DS. Sony has not yet released its sales number for the month, but did sell PlayStation 3 525,000 unit and 160,000 PlayStation Vita units.
Below are the top 10 selling games in U.S per NPD:
1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
2. Halo 4
3. Assassin's Creed III
4. Just Dance 4
5. Madden NFL 13
6. Skylander Giants
7. Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012
8. NBA 2K13
9. WWE 13
10. FIFA Soccer 13
