December NPD: Apparently people shop for nonessential items in December

It's the weirdest thing. Right around November and December of every year, sales of luxury and entertainment items go way up. December of 2007 was no exception for our favorite entertainment item. How much of an exception was it not? How about 2.47 million units in one month alone? 2007 was already a fantastic year for the DS, with 8.5 million systems sold. But considering the constant chart-topping success of the DS, it's pretty remarkable that fully one-third of the year's total DS units sold were sold last month.

Let's look at some little arrows to help put the numbers in perspective.

• DS Lite: 2.47m 940K (61%)
• Wii: 1.35m 369K (38%)
• Xbox 360: 1.26m 490K (64%)
• PS2: 1.1m 604K (122%)
• PSP: 1.06m 493K (87%)
• PS3: 797K 331 (71%)

Head past the break for the December software charts, where we welcome an old friend back to the chart. We've also got the 2007 totals posted, which are, of course, DS-eriffic in the hardware section.
Software sales, December 2007:

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) — 1.47m
2. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) — 1.40m
3. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) — 1.25m
4. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii) — 1.08m
5. Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360) — 894K
6. Halo 3 (Xbox 360) — 743K
7. Brain Age 2 (DS) — 660K
8. Madden NFL 08 (PS2) — 655K
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360) — 625K
10. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii) — 613K

Software total sales, 2007:

1. Halo 3 (Xbox 360) — 4.82m
2. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii) — 4.12m
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) — 3.04m
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) — 2.72m
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) — 2.52m
6. Pokémon Diamond (DS) — 2.48m
7. Madden NFL 08 (PS2) — 1.90m
8. Guitar Hero II (PS2) — 1.89m
9. Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360) — 1.87m
10. Mario Party 8 (Wii) — 1.82m

Hardware total sales, 2007: