Xbox 360 has sold over 30 million

By Tom Bramwell Published 29 May, 2009

And Microsoft claims 20m Live users.

Microsoft has announced that sales of the Xbox 360 have surpassed 30 million units globally.

According to the company, Xbox Live membership has now passed 20 million active users, with US consumers spending over USD 14.5 billion on Xbox 360 product at retail.

"We've always been confident that Xbox 360 offers more entertainment value than any other console on the market, and these latest numbers show that consumers agree," offered Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft.

"We expect our growth to continue to accelerate. 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."

To date, consumers have downloaded almost one billion pieces of downloadable content from Xbox Live, said Microsoft, and since the launch of the New Xbox Experience in November last year, membership has jumped 136 per cent.

US retail sales of Xbox 360 games have generated USD 5.9 billion for third-party publishers, with Microsoft claiming 360 owners have an average of 8.3 titles each.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • TheWretched #1 3 years ago

    UNIQUE users is what's interesting... how many UNIQUE users you have... "active" can mean anything from "really active" (aka Gold) to one login at 360 launch...

    Plus, as with PS3, many 360 owners surely have multiple logins also!

  • lambtron #2 3 years ago

    The 360 won't even outsell the original xbox!

    Oh wait.

  • Domovoi #3 3 years ago

    Can we please get rid of that awful HTC ad? Everytime I see that guy grinning at me it makes me want to murder somebody, and I'm running out of duct tape and garbage bags.

  • keyboardmonkey #4 3 years ago

    Could the 360 be the PS2 of this generation?

    If they could sort out the reliability problems. Shrink the size of the internals like Sony did with the PSOne and PSTwo.

  • the_dudefather #5 3 years ago

    @keyboardmonkey

    As impossible as it seems just now, a teeny tiny 360 would be awesome, especially if it was silent and reliable


    and came with the moon on a stick I guess, but I can dream

  • Vistrix #6 3 years ago

    Why does Microsoft always claim 5-7 million units more than every other respectable market research agency in the world?

  • Vistrix #7 3 years ago

    @keyboardmonkey Not likely.

    At this point in time, the PS2 had sold more than double the units in its lifetime compared to the 360 (roughly 22-25m 360s & 44-48m PS2s).

    But the PS2 didnt have so much competition.
    Edited by 1 at 29/05/09 @ 09:22

  • onyxbox #8 3 years ago

    They may have sold 30 million but about 10 million of those are borked by now ;) (i'm exaggerating it's probably just a few million).

    To be honest I'm 4 or 5 (losing count) of those 30 million due to faults etc. and I currently have 2 360's; Like many others I have a backup unit :)

    The thing that gets me about any of these 360 figures is that we all know there are millions of them that have either been replaced a day or so after purchase due to problems or a little later on due to hardware failure of one flavor or another.

    I bet MS don't count the ones that go back for repair or get replaced by the high street store warranty schemes. I'd love to see an article that at least takes a stab at those figures and what the 'real' picture might look like.

  • Vistrix #9 3 years ago

    Well in 2007 it was confirmed by a few research groups and retailers that the failiure rate was at 30% for the 360 (compared to 1% for both Nintendo and Sony), so it may be close to 10 million broken... which may explain the higher figure that Microsoft always seems to give out.

  • penhalion #10 3 years ago

    @Vistrix

    You'll need to show us those figures as I'm fairly certain they are bogus. I'm also fairly certain there has never been a piece of electronics with a super low 1% failure rate ever!

    I own all three consoles so I'm willing to accept Microsofts figures as close to the truth if a few million out. Their attach rate for games has never been in question so they currently (who knows what the future holds) have no reason to lie about console sales. Sony is doing ok and Nintendo is miles ahead in everything except third party sales. Speaking as someone who works for one of those third parties I can honestly say that we make jack from Nintendo games! In fact we have re-focused effort in the last few months, with a view to not working on Wii at all!

  • RexRunti #11 3 years ago

    For the 90 billionth time a unit replaced under waranty does not count as a sale. (Likewise the second hand market.)

    Anyway, I like how MS have been focusing on how much money third party developers have made. It shows who these figures are really aimed at, publishers. At any rate an attachment of 8.3:1 is pretty damn inpressive, that's nearly a 1/4 of a billion games (expect another announcement by the end of the year).

  • Vistrix #12 3 years ago

    @penhalion

    I admit those figures arent exact, from the top of my head alll of the big research companies release these rough figures (ChartTrack, NPD, MediaCreate etc.), at most they are 5 million figures apart. It doesnt change the fact that the 360 is nowhere near the amount of the PS2 sales at the same point in time.

    The 1% figure is extremely low and a few retailers reported a higher PS3 failiure rate figure (3%). This was in 2007 though so this may have increased by now. Its true that Sony make some of the most reliable hardware in the world (same goes for Nintendo), its not so hard to believe.

    [link url=http://www.slashgear.com/chal k-one-up-for-sony-ps3-failure-rate-less-than-1-056079/ ]http://ww w.slashgear.com/chalk-one-up-fo...[/link]
    [link url=http://gizmodo.com/275179/ps3-failure-rate-less- than-one-percent
    ]http://gi zmodo.com/275179/ps3-failure-ra...[/link]
    http://ww w.ripten.com/2007/07/03/failure...
    Edited by 1 at 29/05/09 @ 10:04

  • GamesConnoisseur #13 3 years ago

    360 could certainly be PS2 of this generation as its has equally the unreliable hardware (PS2 read errors and I had mine replaced twice and X360 replaced once so there!)!

    30 millions is nothing compared to what Wii had achieved so far and PS3 is still not that far behind as well.

    What the story come after Christmas 2009.... that is the next big question!

  • MeBrains #14 3 years ago

    @GamesConnoisseur: PS3 is ahead if you look at sales since launch.

    I also wonder how correct these figures are. Are 30mil indeed operational units, are there back-up machines counted (prolly) - what's the percentage there...

    Looking forward to MS's announcements on E3 though... can't really imagine what they'd show except for the obvious...

  • Vistrix #15 3 years ago

    Anyway, surely the PS2 of this generation is the Wii...In terms of sales anyway.

    Even though its outselling it by quite a bit if you align their launch dates up, its much closer to it than the 360 is.

    If anything, the 360 is slowing down a bit. The PS3 is even outpacing it and has been for over a year.

  • schnide #16 3 years ago

    Love them or hate them (I hate them), you have to say that Microsoft have done a lot of things right with 360 and are deserving of the success they've had in that respect. I'm still shocked at the amount of things Sony have done wrong with PS3, and I've pretty much lost interest in getting one now that I've had such a good experience with my 360.

  • onyxbox #17 3 years ago

    I think MS have done many many things right but they're in for a hell of a fight when PS3 price does drop.

    IMO PS3 is uncomfortably close in 360's rear view mirror and that's with carrying the burden of being about twice the price (or more if you count the Core).

    MS need to step on the accelerator this E3 because as soon as that price drop comes for PS3 and combined with the fantastic library of exclusives PS3 already has; it's a no brainier to see what's going to happen.

  • Darren #18 3 years ago

    I've actually bought two Xbox 360's, the second purchased while by launch unit was being repaired and I've been through replacements and repairs since then so who knows what that 30 million sold figure really represents. Whatever, the Xbox 360 is a decent games console but the hardware quality is beyond appalling IMO.

  • ronuds #19 3 years ago

    "If anything, the 360 is slowing down a bit. The PS3 is even outpacing it and has been for over a year."

    Annnnnnd, you've just totally discredited anything else you've said here. Thanks for playing!

  • andrewfromdoncaster #20 3 years ago

    I've owned 0.0000001% of the 30 million Xbox360s ever produced!!

  • man.the.king #21 3 years ago

    PR bullshit from Don Mattrick aside, very impressive achievement, especially considering that the 360 does not pander to the casual non-gamer market as hard as the Wii.
    Edited by 1 at 29/05/09 @ 18:49

  • Bill Gates is Evil #22 3 years ago

    Why the fuck would they count a Xbox 360 sent in for repairs as a sale? Are you guys retarded?

  • Bill Gates is Evil #23 3 years ago

    And secondly, 8.3 titles per console. That's not doable if 10 million of the 30 million counted were doubled-up counted as sales because of a "repair".

    Reality is, the PS3's sales are much higher than is deserved. A massive portion of that is coming from momentum from having your two previous consoles sell well over 100 million each. It's much easier to sell your first 10 million, if your previous console sold 140 million. You can totally fuck up every aspect of a console, charge people through the roof-- and you'll still have 10 million idiots willing to buy your console because they enjoyed their experience with the previous one.

    Microsoft however sold 24 million last generation, and will sell far more than that this one. That is an achievement. They've earned it. PS3 can in no way come close to matching PS2's sales, and for good reason: Sony has massively fucked up.

    The Sony of 2008 and 2009 hasn't earned them the sales they have with the PS3: The Sony of 1996-2005 is what has sold the vast majority PS3's.