The NPD Group's sales data for both December and the entirety of 2011 has been released today. Unsurprisingly, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the best-selling game in both December and 2011.

Call of Duty is a sales monster, and it was a given that it would be the top game. NPD only tracks new physical retail sales in the United States, including PC game sales, so any games sold through Steam or used copies at GameStop are not included. 6.5 million units of the game were sold in the U.S. and U.K. in just one day, and it was only a few weeks before the game surpassed $1 billion in sales.

The list of companies opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act has grown a bit longer today with both Torchlight developer Runic Games and Nvidia sharing their official stances on the proposed bill.

A thread was made on the Runic Games forums yesterday inquiring about the company's stance on SOPA. A response was posted today which reads in part, "It is clear that the scope of the proposed legislation would give unnecessarily broad power to large corporations while reducing the rights of individual citizens -- and it won't even stop software piracy," pointing to this Boing Boing story as evidence.

Update: Nintendo has announced the stand will be available in all territories and not just in Japan, as some expected.

"Nintendo is including a free stand with all copies of the Kid Icarus: Uprising game for the Nintendo 3DS system," reads a statement sent to 1UP. "The stand holds the Nintendo 3DS at an angle above any flat surface and provides players with a comfortable option for playing. The game's control scheme was designed to fit the game's unique blend of flight, shooting and melee combat, and offers tremendous precision. Our product testing demonstrated that players found the stand to be comfortable and enjoyable."

Concerns voiced by fans have caused CD Projekt Red, the developer of The Witcher 2, to drastically alter the method with which it had been going after those whom allegedly pirated its games.

It was reported in December that a law firm was contacting those suspected of pirating CD Projekt's games and demanding they either fork over money for a settlement or be faced with a lawsuit. A statement from the company claimed, "We can assure you that we only take legal actions against users who we are 100 percent sure have downloaded our game illegally." However, it provided no evidence of it being able to prove such a thing, leading to concerns that legitimate gamers could be targeted.

Thanks to the success of smartphones such as the iPhone and tablets like the iPad, we've heard many people question the future of the dedicated portable game system in recent years. Questions like, "Who wants a system with $40 games that does little beyond playing games when you could get a phone that has much cheaper games and does so much more?" have been uttered countless times, although that hasn't stopped Sony or Nintendo from moving forward with new handhelds. While the 3DS struggled early on, it's done very well as of late, particularly during the holidays, and even Sony is taking that as a promising sign.

"One of the encouraging things about 3DS' sales performance at Christmas is that it is confounding the naysayers who say that there is no room in the market for a dedicated handheld gaming device," said Sony Computer Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan in an interview with MCV. "And to that extent we were encouraged by how 3DS did over the last month."

With the release of Soulcalibur 5 a few weeks away, we thought it would be a fun idea to look back at the prior guest appearances of the series. Check out the video below and take a look back at Spawn, Yoda, and the rest of the Soulcalibur's one-off characters. After that, prepare yourselves for a return trip to the stage of history when SC5 releases at the end of the month on Tuesday, January 31, 2012.

A number of those in the games industry have taken a stand against the Stop Online Piracy Act, although the industry's trade association, the ESA, is among those that do support it. The latest member of the industry to come out against the bill -- which you can read more about here -- is League of Legends developer Riot Games, and joining it is a prominent member of LoL's community: U.S. Representative Jared Polis.

In a post on the game's official forums today, Riot outlined its feelings on SOPA (and, by extension, the similarly problematic Protect IP Act). "We're not usually inclined to comment on politics. We're a game company, and making games is just a whole lot more fun," stated the post, written by CEO Brandon Beck. "But there is legislation under consideration today by the United States Congress that gives us serious concern."

Once again, the Assassin's Creed franchise finds itself without a creative director. Alexandre Amancio, who served in that role on 2011's Assassin's Creed: Revelations, has left Ubisoft Montreal for a position at a company outside of the games industry.

The news was revealed on the website of Cossette, a Canadian marketing company. Amancio will work alongside Antoine B�cotte as the co-chief creative officer for Cossette's Montreal office. According to MobyGames, Amancio previously worked on Far Cry 2, another Ubisoft title.

Looking for a new downloadable game to play on one of your Nintendo systems, but don't want to spend any money? As promised last month, a new batch of downloadable games are now available on Club Nintendo.

After years of offering physical and virtual prizes, Nintendo finally wised up and began offering downloadable games for 3DS and Wii through Club Nintendo in December. The first four games consisted of Super Mario Kart, Fluidity, 3D Classics: Xevious, and Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again, each ranging in price from 100 to 150 coins.

Shooting down a report from last week that suggested the PlayStation 4 (and third Xbox) would be announced at this year's E3, Kaz Hirai has denied Sony plans to make any such announcement in June.

Pointing to Sony's dedication to having a 10-year life cycle with its gaming systems, Hirai -- the current chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment who is rumored to soon be Sony's next president -- said there isn't any hurry to bring out a new console. He echoed what was said by SCE president Andrew House, who recently stated Sony is "just entering into this great period for PS3," adding, "I don't think we're contemplating talking about anything to do with future console iterations at this point."

A handful of accessories Nyko has in the works for PlayStation vita were revealed this week at the Consumer Electronic Show, the most noteworthy of which sounds like it could solve any battery life problems you might be worried about.

Sony announced in September that the Vita's standard battery would provide between 3 and 5 hours while playing games, 5 hours while watching videos, and up to 9 hours while listening to music in standby mode. Those figures assume you're wearing headphones and have the screen brightness at the default setting; they don't take into account other features you might be using such as Bluetooth, 3G, or Wi-Fi.

OnLive today announced a new way of bringing its streaming game service into your living room. It's partnering with Google to bring OnLive gaming to all Google TV devices beginning immediately.

The OnLive Viewer is now available for all current Google TV devices, but keep in mind this is only the Viewer. That means you'll be limited to watching other OnLive users play games and checking out gameplay clips other users have recorded. This can be controlled with either your existing Google TV remote, an OnLive wireless controller, or a standard USB controller.

Perhaps the king of the auto-running genre, Canabalt really stood out on iOS as a game that was not only fun, but controlled extremely well on the buttonless platform. Before that it existed as a free-to-play Flash game on computers, and now it's been ported once again, only this time, it's available for a platform that debuted 30 years ago.

C64anabalt is a conversion of the indie game for Commodore 64. The port was developed by Paul Koller as an entry in the 2011 RGCD C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition. It's now available for sale publicly, but due to the size restrictions of the ROM -- 16KB just isn't a whole lot by today's standards, or last decade's, for that matter -- there are two versions available. One contains a conversion of the original score by Danny Baranowsky, while the other contains music from indie game ThrustBurst.

You can add Kid Icarus: Uprising to the list of titles that support the upcoming Circle Pad Pro add-on for 3DS. But unlike other games that are using it to provide a better, more console-like control scheme, Nintendo is doing this to make left-handed gamers feel more comfortable.

"The way we are using the Circle Pad Pro in the game is to provide support for left-handed gamers," said the game's director, Masahiro Sakurai, in an interview with Official Nintendo Magazine U.K. "We've made it possible to use the right Circle Pad in place of the left one."

As a part of today's PlayStation Store update, PlayStation 3 owners can now download two new media applications designed for fans of college sports.

The XOS College Sports and SEC Digital Network apps each offer a variety of new and old content that can be streamed right to your PS3. It's the first time either has appeared on a videogame console, and both can be had for free, though much of the content they provide comes at a cost.