The video game industry is in something of a downturn compared to the beginning of the year, but the big three have begun to share their results from Black Friday and the rest of the Thanksgiving week. If you thought Nintendo had reached some level of saturation with consumers, get ready for some impressive numbers. If you didn't think the PS3 could continue to be a strong competitor, get ready for some nice year-over-year gains. If you wanted some 360 information, get ready to wait.

Nintendo estimates that it sold more than 550,000 Wii consoles during Thanksgiving week. That's impressive, but Nintendo also puts Nintendo DS and DSi sales at over 1 million units in the same timeframe. "That works out to more than 150 Nintendo systems sold every minute continuously for the week—or more than 2.5 every second," Nintendo's announcement states, somewhat breathlessly. The company also notes that this week breaks its previous sales record for portable hardware set back during the Thanksgiving week of 2002 with the Game Boy Advance.

The consumer appetite for DS hardware seems to be nearly limitless, and with New Super Mario Bros. Wii also on the shelves we can expect some amazing results when the NPD Group releases its monthly sales report in the coming weeks. This is the game that analysts predicted could beat Modern Warfare 2 on a per-platform basis; it has some big expectations ahead of it.

Sony also crowed about its sales, although it offered less detailed data than its competitor. "The 2009 holiday season got off to an amazing start for PlayStation, with all key retailers showing a significant increase for PS3, PSP and key holiday titles over Black Friday and the holiday weekend," said Patrick Seybold, Sr. Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media. "PlayStation 3 demand was at an all time high with the system selling more than 440,000 units for the week ending 11/29/09." Last year, in the whole of November, Sony sold 378,000 units. That's quite a year-over-year increase.

Nintendo's numbers were for November 22 through November 28, so this isn't apples to apples, but Sony's PS3 sales were certainly impressive. We're going to have to wait for information on games sales or PSP performance, however. Predictions? It may not show up on the top ten, but Sony has some serious consumer interest at the new price point, and games like Uncharted 2, Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time, and Demon's Souls are all exclusive and exciting. It would be surprising if the company didn't have a good November.

Microsoft has yet to share any information on sales during the Holiday week. "Great #BlackFriday results just in, biggest sales week of the year for #Xbox360, more than 2xs previous week sales," Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg tweeted, which was about as official as it got on the company's performance. With both Sony and Nintendo boasting about their sales, if Microsoft doesn't comment publicly it doesn't send the best message. If it does comment and sales are below what's being reported for its competitors it also won't be reported positively. If sales were huge, why not share them?

The industry still has a lot of catching up to do if it hopes to match last year, but with strong performance by Sony and Nintendo, with the possibility of a surprise from Microsoft, November looks to be a (relatively) strong month for hardware sales.