The state of the economy withstanding, Nintendo sprung up a surprise with recording November 2008 as the most successful month of game console shipments - it managed to sell an astounding 2.04 million Wii units in November, up from 981,000 last year!

The Wii is the first game console to break the 2-million barrier, even shattering its best month so far - December 2007 - which saw sales of 1,350,000 units. Wii also outsold Xbox 360 2:1 and the PS3 5:1.

Earlier this week, Wedbush Morgan predicted that the Wii would sell around 1.4 million - a greatly respectable number by any standards – but, over 2 million counts is undoubtedly remarkable. It beat the formerly chart-dominating Nintendo DS, which itself still sold 1.57 million units. In fact, NPD has been resolute about $22 billion as the magic overall record-breaking number for 2008, and the data for November falls perfectly in place with that figure!

The month of November was kind to nearly everyone - pulling industry revenue up 10 points over last year for a performance NPD’s Anita Frazier calls “blistering.” The Xbox 360 also had a great month with sales of an estimated 836,000 units, ahead of last year’s 770,000 units for the month. However, the PS3 has been struggling and November indicates that Sony needs to figure out an effective product strategy.

According to Frazier, “One reason for the continued strength of the industry, compared to other forms of entertainment, comes from a number of sources. Certainly, the expanded audience for gaming due to the availability of a wider variety of compelling content is a strong contributor.”