Speaking at the keynote that it has held at the Consumer Electronic Show, Microsoft representatives have announced that worldwide sales of the Xbox 360 home gaming consoles have gone over the 50 million units mark, largely powered by the price cuts the device has seen in the last year and by the launch of the new version last year.
Microsoft is also saying that there are more than 30 million people who have registered accounts on the Xbox Live service, although the company has not offered a breakdown of the number in order to show how many of those were paying for the Xbox Live Gold subscription, which allows access to multiplayer and some exclusive content, and how many were sticking with the free Silver account.
The rise is pretty impressive coming from about 25 million registered Xbox Live users advertised by Microsoft during November 2010.
Microsoft has also said that there have been more than 8 million Kinect motion tracking systems sold to players since the November launch.
The company has long maintained that its plans for this year are based around motion tracking, suggesting that it aims for most of the Xbox 360 consoles sold during this year to come with
Kinect.
In the final few months of 2010, the Microsoft home platform has managed to perform better in the NPD Group offered North American sales charts than either the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Nintendo Wii.
The device has registered increased sales even as its rivals were slowing down the pace of their expansion, suggesting that Microsoft could take the second spot in the current console generation sales.
The device has rebranded itself recently, with a new hardware package that is less prone to breakdowns and that uses less energy, while also offering entertainment options for those who are not interested in gaming.
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