Shoppers flocked to retailers to take advantage of Black Friday Holiday shopping sales.

NEW YORK, NY–Major retailers reported fewer than expected Black Friday brawls, muggings, shootings and violent shopping-related incidents than expected while noting an encouraging boost in some categories of video game sales, which has left many feeling cautiously optimistic about this Holiday shopping season. Early figures suggest that the drop in shopper-on-shopper, shopper-on-clerk, and shopper-on-product violence is off by as much as 45% from previous years. With fewer injuries distracting them from making holiday purchases, shoppers responded by snatching up new video game titles such as New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

“We had medics, store security, police and National Guard units standing by,” said a Manhasset Gobie’s Toys manager. “But the only problem we encountered was when one woman suggested that another shopper had distracted her with a cunning ploy then snatched the last copy of Assassin’s Creed II for Xbox 360.

“The bitch pointed behind me and said, ‘What in the world is that?’,” reported the alleged victim/troublemaker, “so naturally I look and when I turn back she’s grabbed the last Assassin’s Creed and she’s sprinting for the checkout stand. I sneaked up on her by going down another aisle so she wouldn’t see me coming then, just as I was about to ram her with my cart, I was tackled by a security guy.”

Another brawl broke out at a Miami Wall-Mart when a surge of early-morning shoppers reached the video game department only to find that the store seemed to be out of stock of The Beatles Rock Band. In fact, store personnel had moved all the product to a new site near the cash registers, where later arriving shoppers discovered them and quickly bought them out. The ensuing melee in the parking lot drew police and television news crews.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” reported a witness to the scene. “Mostly forty-something moms, still a bit groggy from turkey-feasting it seems, were stumbling around the parking lot, screaming that they had to have one. They were pulling each other’s hair, face-slapping, shin-kicking–cat fight stuff. The sound of smashing cardboard and plastic was sickening.”

But in other venues shoppers reportedly were remarkably civil to one another. One Target store near Bellingham, Washington actually saw one altruistic shopper assist a man who was apparently trying to carry more than a dozen copies of FIFA Soccer 10 for PS3.

“He kept dropping them, first one, then several, then they all came tumbling down,” recalled Jesper Wigginsdale (41) from Vancouver, B.C., who had come south of the border to shop. “The poor man was in tears. So I helped pick up the boxes and carry them to the checkout stand. I figured that anyone wanting to buy so many copies of FIFA was probably a bit, you know, odd, or maybe European and I’ve always been taught to be kind to people with disabilities.”

But apart from disgustingly helpful Canadians, most shoppers seemed to be intent on their own purchasing activities. Sales of major console games and DSi titles were up double digits in most regions, and PSPgo actually sold out in a Kansas City shop that wishes to remain anonymous.

A Costco spokesperson summed up the day as, “A relief, actually. Although Costco shoppers aren’t noted for their violence, when you add in the unemployment, the economy, the combined effects of fatigue, touch football injuries, turkey and cranberry sauce and our copious samples of delicious smoked salmon on crackers, well, we feel lucky to have escaped a major riot.”