Ahead of E3, Microsoft Shows 30 Million Xbox 360 Users (MSFT)

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is making some strong projections and updates for its Xbox video gaming system.  The company noted that global sales of the Xbox 360 unit have now crossed the 30 million mark, and the Xbox LIVE has passed the 20 million mark.

The company is now claiming that the 28% growth so far in 2009 is the highest percentage growth in hardware sales of any console.  The company claims that Xbox owners have 8.3 game titles per console.

Microsoft also claims that U.S. consumers have spent some $14.5 billion across all categories on Xbox 360.  Its third party publishers have generated $5.9 billion to date at US retail.

If you want to know why this data is coming out now, the reason is that this is ahead of next week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).   We’ll be putting together an outlook for the video game sector companies in the next day for what to expect from them at next week’s 2009 E3 conference.

GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) has been under pressure from last week’s earnings outlook and its forecast, while Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO) has come out slightly better.

Other than the rather different Halo Wars in the mega-hit Halo series, it’s time for a new mega-hit.

JON C. OGG
May 28, 2009