Video Games For Christmas?

Market research firm NPD has announced Monday that video games and video game system sales has increased 73% in October reaching an incredible $1.1 Billion is revenue.

I have to say that I have contributed to that number. OK I admit it. I do like to play video games. You see, I come from the 80's where we used to gather en masse and drop countless quarters into great great big machines at places called arcades. Yes kids, you actually had to leave your home to go play video games, well the good ones anyway. These were the days where full sized arcade games like PacMan, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Gauntlet, Asteroids, Defender and Frogger ruled the world. I guess I never grew out of it. I know this is kind of geeky, usually Thursday nights is "video game night" with the fellas. Just fun with friends I guess.

I did purchased a couple of games in October. I picked up a copy of Guitar Hero 3, Call of Duty 4 and Scene It (shhhhhh this is for a Christmas present.) In fact I bought the X360 just because Halo 3 came out. This seems to be what a lot of people are doing.

"Software continues to be a real highlight for us. We had more software sales in the month of October than the Wii and PS3 combined," Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox Live, told Reuters. In September, the Xbox 360 took the top spot over the Wii, which had held the position all year, due to a surge from Microsoft's popular "Halo 3" game." The Wii is no lightweight though. It has sold more units than the earlier released XBox 360 since it's launch just over a year ago. However the PS3 and the Xbox 360 are gaining ground for the holiday season as a result of widespread Wii shortages.

I don't know if people are buying games for Christmas or they are buying them for themselves. All I know is that a LOT of great games are getting released right now. I don't think I put much though into or participated in the Guitar Hero phenomenon up until this point, but I have to tell you, that game is a ton of fun. AND now, Microsoft has taken it a step further with "Rock Band." Evidently you can play the drums, sing and play the guitar with the latest edition to the XBox 360 virtual music scene. As I am writing this, in the adjacent window, I am composing my Christmas list for those that requested one. I do have a couple of games for the 360 on there. If Santa deems it worthy, he may want to drop off a copy of TimeShift for me.

When it comes to Christmas presents and IF your kids were really good, do you think that you would buy your kids a gaming console this year?