NPD: Black Ops is 7th biggest game ever

Call of Duty: Black Ops has become the 7th biggest-selling game ever released in the US after just three weeks on sale.

According to NPD data released today, Treyarch's shooter sold 8.4 million copies during November, easily conquering the monthly top 10 chart and accounting for 25 per cent of all software sales for the period.

Elsewhere in the chart, US buyers picked up more copies of Donkey Kong Country Returns than they did Sony's Gran Turismo 5, though had slightly more time to do so. The former was released on 21st November, the latter on 24th November.

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit also beat out Gran Turismo 5, though it's worth bearing in mind that EA's racer is multi-platform and was on sale for eight more days than the PlayStation 3 exclusive.

The full US November top 10 looks like this:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops
2. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
3. Just Dance 2
4. Madden NFL 11
5. Fable III
6. Donkey Kong Country Returns
7. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
8. Gran Turismo 5
9. NBA 2K11
10. Wii Fit Plus

NPD's analyst Anita Frazier noted that strong sales of Just Dance 2 and Dance Central resulted in a 38 per cent uplift in the music game genre compared to the same period last year.

On the hardware side, Microsoft was the big winner. The Xbox 360 was up a whopping 68 per cent over November 2009, no doubt spurred on by the release of the Kinect peripheral. However, it couldn't quite beat the DS to the month's top-selling hardware crown.

Here's how the top four lined up:

1. Nintendo DS: 1.5 Million (-11.8%)
2. Xbox 360: 1.37 Million (+68%)
3. Wii: 1.27 Million (+0.8%)
4. PS3: 530k (-25%)

Of Kinect's performance, Frazier remarked, "The Xbox 360 Kinect was the best-selling accessory item in November. With one month of sales, it's the top-selling accessory item in terms of dollar sales on a year-to-date basis."