NPD just released its game industry data for November, and the month containing the infamous Black Friday brought with it an insane level of video game sales across the board. The $2.63 billion brought in by the gaming industry marked a 52% year-over-year increase compared to last November.

Software sales eclipsed hardware sales in both dollar amounts and year-over-year change. The 62% year-over-year increase in software sales brought in $1.31 billion for the month, led by 1.57 million units of Infinity Ward's shooter Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC, PS3, X360) for Xbox 360.

Nintendo's Mario Galaxy (Wii) and Ubisoft Montreal's Assassin's Creed (PC, PS3, X360) on Xbox 360, both released later in the month, brought in second and third place in sales with 1.12 million units and 980,000 units sold, respectively. Notably absent from the top-10 best-sellers, listed below, is Harmonix's Rock Band (PS2, PS3, X360), which sold a combined 382,000 units across both PS3 and Xbox 360.

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (X360, Infinity Ward, Activision) 1.57 million
2. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) 1.12 million
3. Assassin's Creed (X360, Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft) 980,000
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock Bundle (PS2, Budcat, Activision) 967,000
5. Wii Play with remote (Wii, Nintendo) 564,000
6. Mass Effect (X360, BioWare, Microsoft) 473,000
7. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3, Infinity Ward, Activision) 444,000
8. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock Bundle (Wii, Vicarious Visions, Activision) 426,000
9. Halo 3 (X360, Bungie, Microsoft) 387,000
10. Assassin's Creed (PS3, Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft) 377,000

NPD's sales figures for November place the Wii in the top spot for home console sales during the month of the infamous Black Friday, with 981,000 consoles sold. The figure makes November the Wii's best-selling month since its launch.

Hardware sales for the month overall ballooned by 47% to $1.1 billion, with Nintendo's DS being the best-selling console during November with 1.53 million DS units sold. Both the Wii figure and DS numbers should come as no surprise, considering Nintendo's recent announcement of the consoles' record-breaking Thanksgiving week sales.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 came in under the Wii with 770,000 systems selling at retail, and the PlayStation family rounded out the last three places with 567,000 PSPs, 496,000 PS2s, and 466,000 PS3s sold during November. Despite being the lowest-selling console during the month, the PS3 actually showed the most growth from the prior month.

Overall, the game industry brought in $2.63 billion in November, a 52% increase over last the same month last year.

The lack of in-game access to Sony's XMB overlay on the PlayStation 3 prevents any kind of meaningful communication with other PlayStation Network users during gameplay. But that should change in the future, as Sony told Shacknews in a ShackBlog Q&A that this feature is a high priority for future PSN functionality.

"We are looking at a number of enhancements related to accessing some of the XMB features during gameplay, including messaging your friends," PlayStation Network director of operations Eric Lempel told the ShackBlog. "While there's no timeline to announce at this point, we've heard loud and clear from consumers that in-game XMB access is one of the most requested PS3 enhancements."

Access to the in-game XMB would presumably allow inviting friends to online matches, like Microsoft has implemented in Xbox Live. Head over to the ShackBlog to read the full Q&A for info on additional PlayStation Network issues.

Santa Ana, California-based developer Ready at Dawn has specialized in making handheld-only spinoff titles to big budget Sony franchises, but the studio may be working on a presumably original console project soon. The company developed the Daxter (PSP) spinoff to Naughty Dog's Jak and Daxter series, and is responsible for the upcoming God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP), based on Sony's God of War franchise.

"This team is ready to move onto something pretty big, and we've been planning it for quite a while, and this team needs to show what they're capable of doing on next-gen or current-gen, which ever word you want to call it," God of War: Chains of Olympus director Ru Weerasuriya told 1UP.

Weerasuriya is most likely referring to the new intellectual propety the company mentioned when it hired former Naughty Dog creative director Dan Arey. Ready at Dawn is also known to be porting Clover Studio's fanciful action-adventure game Okami (PS2, Wii) to the Wii.

Information on the expansion to Incognito's multiplayer shooter Warhawk (PS3) has been trickling out, and the game has finally received a release date. The Operation: Omega Dawn booster pack will be available for download on December 20 for $7.99, Sony told Eurogamer.

The expansion includes a massive new nighttime map, Omega Factory, with five layouts and the KT-424 Combat Dropship. The dropship can carry seven troopers and a ground vehicle, and sports an MBEC-3 Heavy Support Cannon.

Already released for PS2 in Japan, Sting's remake of its 1998 Saturn dungeon-crawler action-RPG Baroque (PS2, Wii) will be localized for a North American release in February. But the game will also arrive on the Wii, publisher Atlus announced, and retail on both platforms for $39.99.

Set in the post-apocalyptic future favored by many Atlus-published RPGs, Baroque features randomly generated dungeons as well as the prominent musical score for which the original game was known. Sting's most recent U.S. releases include Riviera (PSP, GBA) and Yggdra Union (GBA).

Sony promised a demo this year for Media Molecule's cutesy PlayStation 3 killer-app LittleBigPlanet, but it appears the console-maker won't be following through. SCEA PR Manager Ron Eagle confirmed the bad news to MTV's Stephen Totilo.

"I can officially confirm that there won't be a demo this year," Eagle told Totilo, as reported on MTV's Multiplayer blog.

Eagle said the game is still on track for a 2008 release, and he's personally played through 60% of the game's 50 pre-designed levels. He also told Totilo that more of the game will possibly be shown off in January.

For more on LittleBigPlanet, check out the Shack's first impressions of the game and hands-on with the creation tools.

The fifth installment in Clap Hanz's golfing sim series Everybody's Golf will see a release stateside courtesy of SCEA. Known as Hot Shots Golf in North America, Hot Shots Golf 5 will arrive in March 2008 on PlayStation 3.

The game debuted in Japan this past summer. Hot Shots Golf 5 will support 50-player online tournaments and 8-player online matches. The game will also receive downloadable content updates with new courses and other enhancements.

Sales of Nintendo's top-selling DS have surpassed 6 million units in 2007, according to Nintendo's internal sales data through November 30. Based on these figures, the company has pre-emptively but assuredly claimed the title of "the year's top-selling video game system."

"There's no letup in sight," said Nintendo of America marketing VP George Harrison in the announcement. "Nintendo DS appeals strongly to both core and casual gamers, and its momentum is set to propel us into 2008."

As previously announced, the DS's sales of 653,000 units during Thanksgiving week beat the company's previous Black Friday week sales of 600,000 Game Boy Advance consoles. The DS has progressively sold more units each year following its launch in 2004, according to Nintendo.

A gift-giving feature and three new Virtual Console titles, complete with the first VC game to receive new Wii-centric functionality, will be available to online-connected Wii owners later today.

First mentioned earlier this year, gifting allows Wii Shopping Channel devotees to buy Virtual Console games for those they've swapped Friend Codes with. If the recipient already owns the title, the system notifies gift-givers and suggests they pick out another game instead.

In the realm of games, Pokemon Snap, Ghosts'n Goblins, and Baseball Stars 2 are today's additions to the online Virtual Console offerings.

HAL Laboratory's Pokemon Snap, originally for Nintendo 64, is essentially a kid-friendly shooter that replaces guns with cameras. In it, wannabe nature photographers sneak through the Pokemon-infested wild and attempt to take the best ... Read more

Nintendo has repeatedly expressed its lack of foresight in planning for the high Wii demand this holiday season. Due to the console's general unavailability in stores, the company has pulled Wii advertising spots on TV and in other media in the UK, replacing them with ads for the company's handheld DS.

"We have been running the campaign all year round, but we want to take a responsible stance this Christmas and not fuel demand," a Nintendo rep told MarketingWeek.

The ad campaign, produced by London-based marketers Karmarama, will run in 2008 when retail supplies of the Wii increase. Nintendo recently raised its current fiscal year forecast, estimating 17.5 million Wii consoles will be sold through March 2008, up from 14 million.

Known for developing games like Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-AM (PS2), Creat Studios has been given approval by Sony to publish its own downloadable games on PSN as well as those of other studios.

"We are very excited to become a PlayStation Network publisher," said Creat CEO Vladimir Starzhevsky in the announcement. "Digital distribution is a key component in our strategy of becoming a global leader in creating and providing interactive entertainment."

Details of the studio's first PSN title will be revealed shortly, according to the Canton, Massachusetts-based studio's website. Creat also developed the sequel to Konami's Coded Arms PSP shooter, called Coded Arms: Contagion (PSP).

The Writer's Guild strike has sunk its fangs into another victim: Paul W.S. Anderson's Castlevania picture, to be directed by Sylvain White, has been ground to a halt.

The word comes from Filmwad, which cites necessary script work as the cause of delay.

Anderson originally signed on to both write and direct the feature, but has since left to direct a remake of Death Race. His original Castlevania script has since been reworked by untested writer Ian Jeffers. Anderson remains involved in the project, serving as producer.

Fans of Paul W.S. Anderson (AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Mortal Kombat: Behind the Scenes), Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard, Trois 3: The Escort), and all others looking forward to "Castlevania Sucks" puns, despair.

A port of Sega's Phantasy Star Universe (PC, PS2, X360), the latest installment in the Phantasy Star series, will be coming to Sony's PSP. Titled Phantasy Star Portable, the game was revealed by Sega in this week's issue of Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, as translated by 1up.

The game will include the content from Phantasy Star Universe, including the Ambition of the Illuminus expansion pack, and original content as well. It will support 4-player local multiplayer, though online infrastructure play was not announced.

The project is being handled by Tales of the World (PSP) developer Alfa System. The title should arrive in Japan in 2008, with no North American release date given.

SCEE London Studio's song-utilizing music game Beats (PSP) has arrived on Sony's PlayStation Store for PC, not to be confused with Sony's Playstation Store for PS3. The $4.99 game requires 237MB of free space on a PSP's memory stick.

Similar in theory to NanaOn-Sha's Japan- and Europe-only PSone title Vib-Ribbon, Beats creates gameplay based on a user's selected track, stored on the PSP's memory card. The game is the second title exclusively available as a PSP download, the first being Sony Bend's Syphon Filter: Combat Ops (PSP).

The title features both single player and up to four-player ad-hoc multiplayer in both competitive and cooperative versions.

Information on Capcom's long-awaited Street Fighter sequel is finally starting to trickle out today.

According to 1UP, the game will retain the series' six-button control scheme set on a 2D fighting plane, while enhancing the experience with 3D polygonal artwork. The report also includes the first screenshot of the game, a stylized shot of Ryu in a pre-Hadouken pose.

Returning characters include Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Dhalsim. Release platforms have yet to be confirmed, though the game will arrive no earlier than 2009 according to Capcom. ... Read more

An update to the PlayStation 3 version of Harmonix's Rock Band (PS2, PS3, X360) will arrive later today, granting compatibility with the wireless Les Paul controller bundled in the PS3 version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, X360).

Harmonix's own Sean Baptiste announced the update on the Rock Band forums, describing the patch as "a routine update for the PLAYSTATION 3 version of Rock Band that addresses a number of items related to guitar controller compatibility." Although Baptiste rightfully uses cautious wording in the post, Shacknews has confirmed with sources inside EA that the patch will indeed give support for the Gibson Les Paul PS3 wireless controller.

Unlike the PS3's Guitar Hero III controller, the Xbox 360 Gibson Les Paul controller bundled with Guitar Hero III has worked without issue with the 360 version of Rock Band from day one. With this specifically engineered update from Harmonix, it will be interesting to see if Activsion holds up the consumer-punishing claim written prominently in its instruction manual: "Activision expressly prohibits the use of this Guitar Hero controller with any other game."

Microsoft is moving forward with its policy to restrict access of free Xbox Live downloads, including select demos and in-game content, to Xbox 360 owners with a paid Xbox Live Gold subscription. Those who have a free Xbox Live account, commonly referred to as Silver, will not be able to access the content until it has been available for a week.

The recently released downloadable content for Irrational Games' 2K Boston and 2K Australia's BioShock (PC, X360) is the latest example of the policy, which was first introduced with the 2006 debut of a promotional advertisement for Epic's Gears of War (PC, X360) that was available only to Gold subscribers for a limited time.

"This is going to happen more and more (Gold getting things before Silver)," Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb wrote at the time, "so you may want to think about upgrading if you want all the latest and greatest trailers, demos etc."

Yesterday's Xbox 360 system update contained new functionality to point... Read more

Following Sony's quiet launch of a PC-based online PSP store, the director of the project is eager to emphasize the potential of the new distribution network.

In an interview with MTV Games, PSP store director Eric Lempel notes that his team is considering an iTunes-style function that would automatically sync the handheld with downloaded purchases on the PC.

"It currently doesn't support any functionality like that but that is a feature we're looking into," said Lempel. "We want to do some testing, get consumers used to it, see how they would like things to work. We understand that a lot of the free content on there, people are interested in a good amount of it and they'll want to just sync up, not browse."

But what about users who would rather not bother with a PC when it comes to handheld downloads? According to Lempel, in the future, that link in the chain may... Read more

The demo for OmiyaSoft's card game/board game hybrid Culdcept Saga landed on the Xbox Live Marketplace today. Eager board game junkies can expect a 620 MB download.

Culdcept combines the die-powered movement of Monopoly with the strategic card play of a game like Magic: The Gathering. The Xbox 360-exclusive sequel to the original last-gen title, Culdcept Saga is set to hit stores on January 15.