Even though during these times of financial crisis, people are striving to save some money by cutting back on gifts and holiday shopping on the whole, it seems that when it comes to buying video games, Americans are willing to spend every last dime.

Market researcher NPD Group has reported that throughout the United States, retail sales of video games amounted to as much as $2.91 billion in November, which translates as an increase by 10 percent from the previous year.

Moreover, the sales for the entire year until November have been registered to have totaled over $16 billion, 22 percent more than in 2007.

Analyst from NPD Anita Frazier has stated that responsible for these numbers were gaming consoles such as Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s XBOX 360, which have all been in high demand this year.

In addition, another reason is that video games offer people a good deal in terms of price versus hours of value, since according to senior editor at Game Informer magazine Matt Helgeson, a video games usually takes from 10 to 50 hours to complete, with some of them even taking up a couple of months to master.

NPD has revealed that the top-selling games in 2008 included „Gears of War 2,” which registered sales of 1,6 million copies and „Call of Duty: World at War,” with 1,4 million copies sold throughout the year.

Furthermore, Nintendo’s „Wii Play” and „Wii Fit” have both drawn a large number of customers during this year, as well.