A November report from the NPD Group showed that Nintendo Wii smashed its competitors, Microsoft Xbox and the Sony PlayStation 3. This is quite surprising, as the gaming consoles market is prone to every little effect the financial crisis has over the world’s economy. While the Sony and Microsoft sold about 1.2 million of their gaming devices, Nintendo alone crossed the 2 million mark with the Wii.

Microsoft tried to narrow the gap and launched the Xbox Arcade. The Arcade is a slip-streamed version of the Pro/Elite line-up and comes with no hard drive. Still, having a price tag under $200, the Arcade did its job and helped Microsoft to sell a total of about 836.000 units in November, which is a 8.6% increase compared with the sales figures of November 2007.

Even though Microsoft tried to market the Xbox Arcade as a device for family-focused games like Nintendo does with the Wii, it seems that people tend to buy core-gamer software than casual games. As an example, Gears of War 2 sold an astonishing one million and a half copies in just three weeks and Valve’s zombie shooter Left 4 Dead managed to sell 410,000 copies.

On the other hand, it seems that Sony is struggling to mass-market the PlayStation 3, as it still is the most expensive gaming console, having a price tag of $400. However, while the PS3 still has the potential for future price cuts, Microsoft has already brought the Xbox to the $200 price tag.

Nevertheless, most analysts state that the PlayStation 3 will outdo the Xbox on the long run, as it is far superior in terms of hardware specification and Blu-Ray capability that promises to bring HD content closer to the casual users.