In its recently-released report for the month of December, market researcher NPD Group revealed that sales of gaming consoles, software, and portable players leaped 4 percent year-on-year, to $5.53 billion during the month; with Nintendo's Wii topping the sales charts by comprehensively outselling its rivals - Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox.

According to the NPD report, video game hardware and software sales in the US witnessed a rise to record monthly level for December - with Nintendo and Sony achieving the largest monthly sales ever for their respective consoles. While Wii's sales during the month increased 77 percent to 3.81 million units; the sales of PS3 led the gains with an 87 percent jump to 1.36 million units.

Meanwhile, so far as software rankings are concerned, the game titles for the Wii largely dominated the sales scene for December, accounting for 6 out of the top 10 best-selling titles.

Despite the fact that the overall gaming industry statistics for the year revealed that the $10.5 billion generated in sales during 2009 marked an 11 percent drop from the 2008 numbers of $11.7 billion, it is still a fairly good performance for the industry, given the not-so-favorable economic conditions.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in the report: "The big sales this month, particularly on the hardware front, is a positive move for the industry headed into what will hopefully be a recovery year in 2010."