Microsoft has announced that its Xbox 360 console has sold over 30 million units worldwide. And that two thirds of owners are “active” users of Xbox Live. In total, those 20 million Xbox Live users have accessed nearly one billion items of downloadable content.
“We expect our growth to continue to accelerate” said Don Mattrick, Senior VP, Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft. “Our news at E3 next week will underscore our commitment to bringing blockbuster entertainment experiences to everyone and to growing the Xbox entertainment brand globally.”
Since the launch of the “New Xbox Experience” update in November, with avatars for your Gamertag, Microsoft claims active Xbox Live membership has over doubled. And Microsoft also claims the highest “attach rate” for all consoles, with each console owner having purchased an average of 8.3 games.
So, questions, questions, questions for Mr Mattrick and Microsoft: 1. How many Xbox 360 consoles have Microsoft had to manufacture to achieve 30 million sales (given warranty replacements)? 2. What proportion of those “active” Xbox Live gamers are Xbox Live Gold members (and therefore able to play multi-player over the service, but paying £35 annually for that)? And what proportion are merely active free Xbox Live Silver members (and have therefore been on to Xbox Live and perhaps downloaded a game demo or two)? 3. When will the next Xbox be launching?
Out now | from £170 | Microsoft Xbox 360 (available at Game.co.uk)
So thats about 13m faulty ones produced then. Congratulations Microsoft you must be very proud for rushing our your junk and letting the braindead consumer carry on purchasing.
I do wonder how many ACTIVE XBoxes there are out there, it’s certainly not 20m. 25m maybe (game sales numbers suggest PS3 and 360 titles are selling pretty much on par these days, and with the 360’s piracy problems, PS3 is usually more profitable, at least according to EA, Ubisoft, Konami and Namco Bandai).
Typical Sky and Xbox customers probably dont care or dont understand the issues.
They will lap this up in droves till they realise they are now spending 100quid/month on the combined Sky/MS Live/Broadband services, and still have no more functionality than a freeview PVR.