Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii held on to its spot as the No. 1 video game console in the United States in November, selling 981,000 units, industry data showed on Thursday.

It was the Wii's best showing for the console since its November 2006 launch, topping last December's sales figure by 60 percent, according to market research firm NPD.

Since there is still an evident inventory shortage at retail, it's difficult to say just how high sales could be if you took that issue out of the equation, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said.

Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360 console sold 770,000 units while Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 sold 466,000 units, NPD said.

Activision Inc had the top-selling video game, Call of Duty 4, which sold more than 2.01 million copies for the Xbox 360 and PS3, NPD said.

Nintendo also sold 1.53 million of its DS handheld device while Sony sold 567,000 of its PlayStation Portable, the data showed.

Activision's Guitar Hero 3 sold 1.9 million copies for the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and Sony's older PlayStation 2.

Assassin's Creed from France's Ubisoft sold nearly 1.36 million copies for the Xbox 360 and PS3, while Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii sold 1.12 million copies.

(Reporting by , editing by Leslie Gevirtz,, Richard Chang)

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