Microsoft Corp. on Thursday reaffirmed its plan to ship 10 million game consoles by Holiday season 2006 and also said it expects 13 – 15 million gaming machines to be supplied to the market by June 2007. The company also reportedly indicated that sales of games and accessories for the Xbox 360 are growing.

Xbox 360’s accessory attach rate held steady for the fourth consecutive month at 2.9 accessory units sold per console. At nine months into the lifecycle, Xbox 360 is still setting a record with the highest accessory attach rate of a console launch in the U.S., according to Microsoft, reports Team Xbox web-site. Xbox 360’s software attach rose this month to 4.6 games per console. “This surge continues to show the depth and breadth of Xbox 360’s video game library,” Microsoft is reported to have said.

“By holiday 2006, we believe we will have shipped more than 10 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide and have an expected catalog of 160 high-definition games. The E&D team is carrying strong momentum into FY07 with anticipated growth expected to benefit from holiday sales of Xbox 360. E&D forecasts fiscal year 2007 guidance for Xbox 360 unit sales between 8 to 10 million consoles. The yearly guidance implies that by the end of the fiscal year we expect to sell 13 to 15 million Xbox 360 consoles since launch,” a statement from Microsoft’s entertainment and devices group reads.

So far over 5 million Xbox 360 game consoles have been shipped.

Microsoft Xbox 360 console is based around microprocessor developed by IBM, high-definition visual processing unit designed by ATI Technologies, I/O controller engineered by SiS and some other key components. The gaming machine will provide a broad set of multimedia capabilities in addition to games. Depending on the bundle, Microsoft Xbox 360 currently costs $299 or $