As was expected, 2007 proved to be a record breaking year for the gaming industry, with massive sales noted in the US.

It has been reported by the NPD Group that $17.9 billion of gaming software, hardware and accessories that are unrelated to PC games were sold in the US during the year of 2007. This record breaking figure shows a 43% increase over last year's impressive totals.

According to NPD research, Nintendo came in top place of the hardware sales figures. The largest number of sales in the US was recorded for the portable DS, followed by the Wii console. Third place was taken by Microsoft with its sales of the Xbox 360. It is interesting to note that more units of Sony's PlayStation 2 were sold in 2007 in the US, than PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable followed closely behind the PlayStation 2.

The annual sales figures for video game hardware in the US reportedly rose 54% over figures from 2006 and totaled $7.04 billion.

As far as US software is concerned, it is no great surprise that within the US gaming industry the number one position was taken by Microsoft's 'Halo 3' for the Xbox 360. Coming in second place of the largest US sellers was the 'Wii Play' that is a compilation of games for use with a Wii remote.

Upon analyzing the general gaming sales figures, NPD emphasized the success of the Guitar Hero franchise. It is reported that more than the massive figure of $820 million were spent on Guitar Hero games within US retail during the year. It is interesting to note that both the games "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" and "Guitar Hero II" were among the ten top selling games in 2007 on the US market.