The marketing research firm NPD has turned in their analysis of what the top video game titles and consoles were last month and the news is very good for the industry as a whole. Leading the top in sales of new software was Activision’s “Call of Duty 4″ for the Microsoft Xbox 360 which sold an impressive 1.57 million copies. Nintendo’s “Super Mario Galaxy” came in second place and if you combine the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 sales for “Assassin’s Creed” it would actually take the silver medal. Not coincidentally Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed” has emerged as the best-selling new IP for games in recent years.

Nintendo’s handheld DS gaming device sold an amazing 1.53 million units in November which was enough to give it the top of the chart for hardware sales. In second place was Nintendo’s Wii gaming console with 981,000 Wiis sold followed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in third spot with 770,000 units finding homes. Sony moved 577,000 PlayStation Portable to give it fourth place and the price drop in the PS3 convinced 466,000 consumers to go out and buy one of the consoles last month.

Attention all you Halo 3 lovers - you can now carry your game pride around on your shoulder as you haul around your laptop day to day. Master Chief says to outfit yourself with this new Halo 3 Messenger Bag, priced at around $40.

The Halo 3 Messenger Bag, when not busy hold your plasma grenades, has enough room to store a 15-inch laptop. There are six zippered compartments and velcroed interior compartments - plenty of space to store extra ammo or your iPod.

Time magazine has released its list of the top ten videogames of the year. Can you take a guess at what made their number one spot? If you guessed “Halo 3″ you don’t win a prize. “Like a pebble that has been rounded over the centuries by the gentle splashing of the ocean waves, ‘Halo 3′ has become the perfect hardcore first-person combat simulator,” said Time in their idol worship of the Xbox 360 killer app. “By dint of painstaking labor on the part of its developer, Bungie, it has been refined over three installments to the point where it delivers only pure, unadulterated gaming bliss.” Who knew that the editors at Time were down with playing some Master Chief deathmatches?

Of the titles that made Time’s best of 2007 list six are exclusive to one videogame system, of which three are for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and one each for Sony’s PlayStation 2, Nintendo’s DS and Wii console systems. Why didn’t at least one PlayStation 3 exclusive title make it on Time’s list? And no “Guitar Hero III” (or is that game now redundant that “Rock Band” is out and lets you play drums as well as guitar?)

Finally, a USB drive for geeks who want to put some religion into their USB port and their lives. Normally it’s only after you’ve lost your important data that you would pray to Holy Mary, Mother Of God. Now you can do it at your leisure and hopefully she will listen and keep your data safe.

It will act as a good reminder to geeks to keep some religion in their lives. When she is hooked up, her red LED heart will beat, indicating how the Holy Mother watches over your computer’s innards. (If only she sang “Turn On Your Heartlight, huh?) Her halo is engraved with the prayer “Oh Maria, keep my data safe!”. So, it must work.

Remember those cute “Star Wars” and “Halo” themed USB memory drives offered by Mimoco? Starting in February the company will offer its second wave of “Star Wars” USB drives with another four characters from George Lucas epic space adventure. Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker (in his orange X-Wing jumpsuit) and bounty hunter Boba Fett are in the second wave. The four new USBs join the first wave “Star Wars” Mimoco drives of Darth Vader, R2-D2, Chewbacca and an Imperial Stormtrooper.

The “Star Wars” USB drives come in 1 GB ($49.95), 2 GB ($69.95) and 4 GB ($109.95) models. Compatible with both Mac and Windows platforms, the USB 2.0 drives are 2 2/8-inches high and limited to 3,500 units. And you bet that you can remove Boba Fett’s helmet and see what his face looks like under that armor.

Is “Halo 3″ not worthy of play on the Microsoft Xbox 360? According to one California resident, you better bet your Covenant plasma pistol.

A class action suit has been dropped on Bungie, the makers of “Halo 3″ and Microsoft alleging that their hit video game “does not function with the Xbox 360, and to the contrary, attempted use of Halo 3 consistently causes the Xbox 360 to ‘crash,’ ‘freeze,’ or ‘lock up’ while the game is being played.” The suit also states that neither one of the two firms have done enough to fix the problems caused by the bad loads. “Many consumers have reported that the ‘Halo 3′ video game has caused their Xbox video game consoles to crash and remain totally inoperable after playing the ‘Halo 3′ video game,” reads a portion of the document.

Nintendo is celebrating its first year anniversary for the Wii with more good news. In the first week of release for its heavily anticipated title “Super Mario Galaxy” over 500,000 copies of the game were sold by retailers. This distinction places SMG as the bestselling Wii video game to date. It’s also one of the best reviewed games in Nintendo’s entire history with many publications calling it to be a top candidate for Game of the Year honors.

While Microsoft will likely put out its own press release next week to hype the anticipated big sales of its new IP “Mass Effect” it will also probably try and steal some thunder from SMG’s big sales by pointing out that its flagship title “Halo 3″ sold over 2.7 million copies worldwide within the game’s first seven days of release this past September. To be fair to Nintendo their 500K figure only includes domestic sales of “Super Mario Galaxy” but as PC World’s gaming blog points out its estimates for European and Japanese sales of the game would still peg the title at below 1 million units sold for launch week. So is Mario still as popular worldwide as Master Chief or has a new king of video games finally been crowned?

Today marks the arrival of BioWare’s next role-playing game. The creators of “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” and “Jade Empire” return with a new science fiction IP they call “Mass Effect” made exclusively for the Microsoft Xbox 360.

The game lets you assume the role of a human military officer named Samuel Shepard. Set in the distant future when humans have colonized the galaxy and interact with alien races, Shepard is given orders to investigate a discovery on a far-off planet that could jeopardize the lives of hundreds of billions. By interacting with non-player characters, using the squad-based combat system and exploring alien worlds in search of clues you will uncover the cosmic danger that lies in store for the galaxy and hopefully find a means to prevent disaster.

Can you believe Xbox Live, the online arm of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console, turns five tomorrow? Neither can we. That being said, this is a shining example of an area where Microsoft held on to become a dominant force in a vertical category. To celebrate this crowning moment several announcements were made which should make things even more interesting.

For starters, Microsoft is giving away for free between 12:01 a.m. PST on Nov. 15 and 11:59 p.m. PST on Nov. 16 an Xbox Live Arcade game for download. Of even bigger interest to gamers, particularly fans of the original Xbox, is word of a free system update which will offer, among other enhancements, the ability to purchase and download original Xbox games. These Xbox Originals look to initially include Halo,” “Psychonauts,” “Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge” and “Fable,” among others.

The Discovery Rainbow In My Room makes a great gift if you want to steer your kid toward Science and away from say, Halo. Though I doubt most boys would appreciate this. It fits in more in a room filled with My Little Pony’s.

LED lights recreate the colors of a real rainbow and the motion-activated sensor turns the unit off with a wave of your hand.

A cool Halo-inspired jack o’ lantern for all of you Halo and Halloween fans out here with a clever play on words of Haloween, courtesy of Kotaku.

Microsoft is working hard to be competitive with its rivals Sony and Nintendo in Japan’s market which has proven so far to be fairly difficult for them. Despite a stellar month in September for US Xbox 360 sales, the company has not faired as well with the Japanese market over the past year in keeping up with the home town’s PS3 and Wii game consoles. As the holidays are nearing the company is keeping pace and making moves with its console trying to spur some additional sales with an announced price drop for the Xbox 360 core system and the 20GB bundle.

Starting on November 1 in Japan, the Xbox 360 20GB bundle will start retailing for ¥34,800 ($306) which is a $44 cut from its previous price. The 360 core system will start going for ¥27,800 ($245) which gives it an $18 cut. Microsoft is also putting out a limited Value Pack for the console for ¥34,800 ($306) which comes with Viva Pinata and Forza Motorsport 2 titles but no HDMI cable.

After almost a year of trailing in console sales, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has finally pulled ahead of the widely popular Nintendo Wii marking the first time since the Wii’s launch last November that it hasn’t been number one. As anticipated by many, Microsoft pulled this off with a little help from the launch of Halo 3 which earned $170 million on its first day and $300 million its first week and ended up spurring a number of Xbox 360 sales along with it.

Those sales totaled 527,000 units of the console in the month of September which was a significant jump from the 276,700 sold the previous month. Nintendo was no slump for September either marking 501,000 Wii units and 495,800 handheld DS consoles. Both figures were also significantly more than in August.

It comes as no surprise to anyone that “Halo 3″ would be the best-selling game for the month of September. We also know that the game sold $170 million dollars worth of product on its launch day, but how well did it do in the days that followed? Today we learn the answer to that question thanks to the sales figures released by NPD Group which calculate that a whopping 3.3 million copies of “Halo 3″ were sold in the game’s first twelve days of release. That’s correct, the 3.3 million figure is not even for two solid full weeks let alone a whole month. To give you an idea of how staggering that figure is consider that the number two best-selling game on NPD’s list is Nintendo’s Wii Play with Wii Remote which sold 282,000 units, or roughly 3 million less than “Halo 3″ did.

Microsoft was also able to translate the “Halo 3″ hype into moving more of its Xbox 360 game units off of store shelves. The console leapt to the top of the sales charts with 528,000 360s sold in September, well over the Wii (with 501,000) and the PlayStation 3 (119,000). However Nintendo posted its best month ever selling Wiis for September and usually the company is in first place for console sales, so enjoy your one month of being at the top of the heap, Master Chief.

It seems that Microsoft is reacting to the increased competition from Sony and Nintendo for the upcoming holiday season. In anticipation to Sony’s forthcoming price reduction for its PS3 Microsoft will be releasing two Xbox 360 console and game bundles before the end of the month. The Pro Xbox 360 bundle pack ($349) will consist of an Xbox console (20 GB version) and copies of “Forza Motorsport” and “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” while the 120 GB HDD Elite 360 pack ($449) will ship with the same two games. Essentially you will be getting two free games when you lay down your dollars for either one of these two systems. Microsoft also probably is hoping that the good will generated will in turn get you to open your wallet further and maybe pick up a copy of “Halo 3″ while you’re standing in line.