In spite of long release delays and a somewhat mixed reaction from gamers and reviewers, real-life race driving simulator Gran Turismo 5 sold over 560.5K units in December, according to sales data released by The NPD Group. Healthy, but hardly blockbuster level sales--the game was number 8 on the charts in November, but didn't break the top ten in December.

The game hit U.S. stores on November 24, and since then, according to Sony, 5.5 million units have shipped worldwide with 1.25 million of those shipped to North America.

In the case of GT 5, chart numbers might be a bit deceiving. It's the kind of game that I think we'll see steady sales of over time, as more people buy PS3s. It's not the sort of game that's easily dated... of course, if you check out the video below the cut, you'll see that I'm a total GT5 fanboy, and I make no apologies for it!