360 puts the X in Xmas (updated)

According to research firm NPD (as reported by CNBC) Microsoft sold two million Xbox 360 consoles in the USA between the beginning of November and Christmas Day. Over the same period Nintendo sold 1.8 million Wii consoles.

Sony lagged behind with around 750,000 PlayStation 3 units, but that's not a bad figure considering the supply problems the console has experienced.

It would be interesting to see figures for Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2 though, which are likely to have beaten the more expensive next-gen hardware.

04/01/07 Update: It seems that CNBC made a complete cock-up when using the NPD figures. "Recent media reports erroneously cited The NPD Group as having provided to CNBC December '06 retail sales for the video game industry," NPD's David Riley told GameDaily BIZ, "Although the specific CNBC segment included NPD's November '06 console hardware install base sales figures, there were no sales figures or forecasts from NPD for December 2006. NPD's December/Year-End sales data will become available Jan 11."

That's CNBC off our Christmas Card list. It'll be interesting to see the true figures from NPD when they appear.