New York - U.S. video game sales shot up 52% in November over the same period a year ago, climbing to $2.63 billion on strong sales of the Nintendo Wii and Activision's (NASD: ATVI) "Call of Duty 4" and "Guitar Hero 3," according to industry sales data compiled by NPD Group.

Nintendo sold a record 981,000 Wii consoles last month, compared with 770,000 Microsoft Xbox 360s and 466,000 Sony PlayStation 3 consoles.

Among handheld systems, Nintendo sold 1.53 million DS units, while Sony sold 567,000 PSPs.

On the software side, Activision had the top-seller in "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare," which moved over 2 million units across all consoles; the publisher's "Guitar Hero 3" also sold 1.9 million copies across all platforms.

Other games in NPD's top ten list for November included Nintendo's "Super Mario Galaxy" and "Wii Play" for the Wii, Ubisoft's "Assassin's Creed" for the Xbox 360, and BioWare/Microsoft Game Studios' "Mass Effect" for the Xbox 360.

NPD said that the industry had generated $13.1 billion in sales through the end of November -- already surpassing full-year sales tallies for all of 2006.

"If the year had ended on Dec. 1, 2007 would be up 5% vs. last year," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "With the biggest month of the year yet to go, total industry sales are on track to achieve between $18 billion and $19 billion in the U.S."

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