Microsoft sells nearly 10 million Xbox 360s over the holiday season, and Kinect sales reach 18 million.
According to the video on the right there, which mixes the odd informative figure into an otherwise endless parade of smug, middle-class, pretty-people flailing their arms around in a series of absurdly spacious showrooms – the bit where Mickey Mouse punched that kid in the face was brilliant though – the 360 just reached 66 million sold worldwide. A ten million increase over the number reported last October.
To put those numbers into perspective. The PS2, the best-selling console to date, has sold 155.8 million units since its release in 2000. The original PlayStation has sold 102.49 million, and the Wii has sold 89.36 million. The PS3 currently stands at 55.5 million sold.
The Kinect is close to doubling its install base, with a total of 18 million units sold. The video also states that Xbox Live memberships currently stand at 40 million, meaning nearly 60% of Xbox owners are connected to the service. The video didn’t specify how many of those 40 million users were Gold members.
The video was released just ahead of the company’s final CES keynote; a presentation from endlessly entertaining, shrieking sales-baron Steven Ballmer. I expect this information, as well as any other suitably impressive numbers the company can produce, will be expounded in tonight’s keynote.
Call me a raging cynic, amongst other things, but I’d give good money to find out exactly how many of those 66 million were bought as replacements for consoles that fell victim to the notorious ‘red ring o’ death.’
