The video game industry on a worldwide scale truly did expand in 2006. The U.K. had a record breaking year, game sales in Japan hit an all-time high, the U.S. video game industry achieved a new record of $12.5 billion, and now it would appear that our North American counterpart also set a new record. The Canadian Press has reported that Canada's video game industry came close to $1 billion in sales during 2006, hitting a new record of $933 million (up 22 percent).

Similar to what we experienced in the U.S., hardware sales played a major role in the market's expansion. Despite shortages of the new systems (PS3 and Wii) Canadian hardware sales totaled $349 million, a 43 percent jump year-over-year. A total of 1.62 million video game systems were sold.

Just as it did here, the Nintendo DS dominated in Canada with 374,000 units sold as the top platform in 2006. Hot on the heels of the DS was the PS2, which sold 327,000 units. The Xbox 360 came in third with 252,000 units and Nintendo's old GBA took the fourth spot with 237,000 units. The PSP and GameCube trailed the pack with 176,500 units and 89,000 units, respectively. Meanwhile the Wii sold through over 84,000 units and the PS3 sold over 45,000 units. The original Xbox, which is all but dead, came in last with a measly 32,000.

Although the sales for PS3 and Wii may not be all that impressive, Darrel Ryce, director of technology and entertainment for the NPD Group in Canada expects the new consoles to really take off in 2007. "It was all supply. In both cases, if there had been a higher level of inventory out there, they definitely would have sold more," he told the CP. "These were the two hottest need-to-find kind of articles for Christmas this year. Everybody was talking about them."

On the software side, Canada saw a 10 percent rise in sales to $481 million. Not surprisingly, hockey led the way. EA's NHL 07 (or as we like to say, "Canada's Madden") was the best selling game for the year up north. Coming in second was Nintendo's New Super Mario Bros. for the DS. And despite having released in November, Microsoft's Gears of War claimed the third spot for the year. Rounding out the top 10 were Final Fantasy XII (PS2), The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii), Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2), Super Mario 64 DS (DS), Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2), Brain Age (DS) and Gran Turismo 4 (PS2).

Looking at a fresh start for 2007, Ryce expects the year to be another great one for Canada. "Over the last few years, we're seeing that Canadians are more than willing to accept the newer systems and to have more than one system in their house," he said.