66M Xbox 360s, 18M Kinects Sold Worldwide

At CES yesterday, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer revealed the latest sales numbers for the Xbox 360 and the Kinect.  Ballmer commented on the Xbox franchise, stating that,”We invest for the longterm.  We’re the world sales leader for the last year in consoles and we have 66 million Xbox users and [almost] 40 million Xbox Live subscribers.”

The reveal indicates an incredible boost to the 57.3 million revealed in October 2011, showing that the 2011 holiday season greatly helped Microsoft’s sales.  Microsoft also played up their system as an entertainment hub, not just a games machine, noting that the company shipped over 18 million Kinect sensors to date.  As of March 2011, the company was only at around 10 million.

With the rumors that Microsoft will be debuting their newest system shortly, (unofficially dubbed the Xbox 720), it’s nice to hear the company themselves state that they’re set on supporting their system in the long run.  Hopefully Microsoft can learn from the way Sony supported the PS2 well into the PS3′s life and not handle the situation like the original Xbox.

[Source: Gamasutra]