Lovers of stats and figures rejoice, for NPDs latest figures from December 2011 and 2011 as a whole are about to grace your eyes.

Overall, 2011 was a great success for the gaming industry in the US, with the gap between physical/retail sales and digital sales narrowing. Sales were down a bit, and Microsoft came out as the top earner.

Oh, and look; statistics!

• Gamers are estimated to have spent around $16.5 billion in the US last year – down 2% from 2010.
• Physical game content generated $9.3 billion, 8% less than 2010’s $10.1 billion.
• HD Consoles were up 9% thanks to all that added-value digital content.
• Xbox 360 was top dog, accounting for 40% of all new physical retail sales in 2011.
• 23% of 2011’s sales occurred in December, actually less than the 28% trend seen in previous years.
• The top 20 games of December generated 50% of all revenue in the month.

As an added notch in Microsoft’s belt, at CES 2012 they also revealed that they’d sold 1.7 million Xbox 360 consoles over December and lead as the top-selling console in the US every month last year.

Still, gaming sales down 2% from 2010? Unacceptable! They’ll just have to try harder this year.

Source: NPD