While much of the retail sector found itself in the teeth of a recession during the holidays, specialty retailer GameStop was able to emerge virtually unscathed, the company reported Thursday.

The Grapevine, Tex.-based firm said sales for the nine-week holiday period leapt 22 percent to $2.86 billion from $2.33 billion a year ago, thanks in large part to "oustanding" sales of new titles. Same store sales were up 10 percent.

New videogame software sales rose 26 percent, driven by the top five titles for the season: Activision's Call of Duty: World at War and Guitar Hero World Tour, Microsoft's Gears of War 2, Blizzard's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and Nintendo's Wii Fit.

Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 led hardware sales, GameStop said, a promising indicator of continued software sales momentum going into the new year.

Sales of gift cards were up 15 percent over last year, and the day after Christmas was "the third-highest sales volume day in GameStop's history," said COO J. Paul Raines.

As a result of the "record" holiday sales, the firm raised the low end of its Q4 2008 earnings per share guidance by 2 cents to the range of $1.31 to $1.34, a 15-18 percent increase over the comparable quarter a year prior.

Stocks in the retailer rose $1.33, or 6 percent, to $23.94 in morning trading on the Nasdaq.