Xbox Gaming in South Africa

The Xbox 360 has emerged as the only system to attain year-over-year growth in 2010, revealing an impressive 42% rise on 2009, according to US market research company, NPD Group.

December 2010 proved to be the Xbox 360's biggest month to date in the US, with 1.86 million consoles sold, as well as strong Kinect sales with Kinect Sports and Dance Central both reaching 1 million units in the US alone, according to a tweet by Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg, adding to total sales of $6.2 billion in 2010. And that could've been even more had there been more stock available, according to Xbox product manager, David Dennis.

 “We would have sold more had we not run out of supply in late December,” said Dennis. “We air-freighted stuff in December, but you can only sell as many as you can make.”

Overall, the industry saw a decline for the second year running, down 6% to $18.58 billion in 2010 from $19.3 billion in 2009. On the sale count, Nintendo once again claimed the top spot with 8.5 million systems sold.

Software sales saw Call of Duty: Black Ops taking the top spot, selling close to twice as many units as the second placed title, Electronic Arts' Madden NFL 11, while Microsoft's Halo: Reach finished third.

Below is the complete top 10 for best-selling games in 2010:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard) - Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PC, DS
2. Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts) - Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP
3. Halo: Reach (Microsoft) - Xbox 360
4. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo) - Wii
5. Red Dead Redemption (Take-Two Interactive) - Xbox 360, PS3
6. Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo) - Wii
7. Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft) - Wii
8. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard) - Xbox 360, PS3, PC
9. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft) - Xbox 360, PS3
10. NBA 2K11 (Take-Two Interactive) - Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, PC

With 2010 now confined to the history books, the gaming industry as a whole will be looking forward to regaining lost ground over the coming year.

[via Gamasutra]