Video game sales edge higher on 'Modern Warfare 3'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — U.S. retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories rose 0.4 percent to $3 billion in November, as sales of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" blew up last year's "Call of Duty: Black Ops" from the same company.

That's according to market researcher NPD Group.

Hardware sales, which includes game consoles and accessories, fell 9 percent to $982.4 million, mainly because the year-ago figures were boosted by the launch of Microsoft Corp.'s Kinect motion controller for the Xbox.

Sales of software — that is, of the video games themselves — rose 16 percent to $1.74 billion. That's much more than the 3 percent increase Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter was expecting.

"Modern Warfare 3," a military shooter from Activision Blizzard, was the month's best-selling game.