Danny Cowan from Gamasutra writes:

"Gamasutra's weekly column, "Saling The World", covers the top five sellers for every available platform in the United States, Japan, and Europe, providing an important update of sales patterns worldwide.

This week's charts, with data taken from February 5th, 2009, find Halo 3 and Call of Duty: World at War at the top of North America's Xbox 360 software sales charts, while Star Ocean: Second Evolution and Mario Kart DS drive sales on portables.

Data for "Saling The World" comes courtesy of the public sales information on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.co.jp, with sales split out for each platform and territory, and pre-orders disregarded. This results in a true sense of what games are selling worldwide on the real-time updated service, as follows..."
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Top 20 Games of December 2008:
01. [WII] Wii Play (Nintendo) - 1460k
02. [360] Call of Duty: World at War* (Activision Blizzard) - 1330k
03. [WII] Wii Fit (Nintendo) - 999k
04. [WII] Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) - 878k
05. [WII] Guitar Hero World Tour* (Activision Blizzard) - 859k
06. [360] Gears of War 2* (Microsoft) - 745k
07. [360] Left 4 Dead (Electronic Arts) - 629k
08. [NDS] Mario Kart DS (Nintendo) - 540k
09. [PS3] Call of Duty: World at War (Activision Blizzard) - 533k
10. [WII] Animal Crossing: City Folk* (Nintendo) - 497k
11. [WII] Wii Music (Nintendo) - ~480k
12. [NDS] New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo)
13. [NDS] Personal Trainer: Cooking (Nintendo)
14. [360] Fallout 3* (Bethesda Softworks)
15. [NDS] Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force (Disney Interactive Studios)
16. [WII] Link's Crossbow Training (Nintendo)
17. [PS2] Guitar Hero World Tour* (Activision Blizzard)
18. [360] Madden NFL 09* (Electronic Arts)
19. [WII] Call of Duty: World at War (Activision Blizzard)
20. [WII] Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip (Ubisoft)
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MCV: Mario Kart Wii and FIFA 09 outsell all others in full year
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For the second year running, the Xbox 360 is the king of consoles. Barely edging out the impressive PS3, the swanky new dash and the amazing exclusives like Gears of War 2 and Fable 2 put Microsoft over the top. The Wii's casual focus didn't garner it any votes this year.
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Target Corp. stores this week began holding a new game sale for Sony Corp.'s Playstation 3, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, and Nintendo Co.'s Wii that discounts new titles to under $40.
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Lazard Capital senior analyst Colin Sebastian has issued a warning about triple A product discounting over the Christmas and New Year period, on fears that it could lead to a general trend in a difficult economy and subsequently lower publisher revenues.

He voiced his concerns in a recent analyst note looking at Activision Blizzard's move to knock USD 10 off the price of Call of Duty: World at War, bringing the US retail price point down to USD 49 - a move that follows price reductions on Guitar Hero: World Tour, and other cuts from Electronic Arts and Ubisoft.
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Call of Duty: World at War performed fairly well in terms of critical reviews on both the Wii and DS, yet both versions have pretty much sold a dismal amount compared to the 360 and PS3.
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ELSPA (Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) today announced the list of videogames vying for the number one spot this Christmas. And leading bookmaker Ladbrokes makes Call of Duty: World at War its 1/3 favourite for the festive accolade...
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Despite a widely-reported slowdown in consumer spending on the High Street, the majority of specialist games retailers are enjoying a more lucrative Christmas than they did last year. This is according to the findings of a new nationwide study – the MCV Retail Survey 2008 – which shows that 58 per cent of UK retailers believe their Christmas takings are up on 2007...
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Ahead of tomorrow's NPD sales figures for the month of November, analyst Cowen Research is expecting Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty: World at War to have been the big sellers for the month.

Both titles are expected to have sold two million units during the period in the US, while Sony's Resistance 2 and THQ's WWE Smackdown Vs RAW 2009 will have sold around 500,000 copies each, according to the firm.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is also expected to have reached almost two million sales in the region, while Activision's Guitar Hero: World Tour will have sold at least one million units, said Cowen.

Overall, Cowen anticipates that software sales will have grown nine per cent during November, compared to the same period last year, including a 5 per cent growth in handheld games and a massive 76 per cent growth in PC titles, due primarily to the Warcraft expansion.
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