Microsoft Corp. said at Consumer Electronics Show on Monday that it had managed to sell 17.7 million of its Xbox 360 game consoles. With shipments numbers close to those of life-to-date sales of the original Xbox, Microsoft can certainly be glad. The question is whether Xbox 360 is set for further growth.

“Xbox [360] on a worldwide basis has had tremendous success, as well, 17.7 million consoles shipped to date. And we are on track this year in the U.S. to have the biggest year ever in videogame history in the United States,” said Robbie Bach, Microsoft president of entertainment and devices division.

According to figures by Microsoft, in Q4 2007 the company managed to sell about 4.3 million of its latest game consoles worldwide, which is quite a lot. However, 17.7 million game consoles may not be a truly impressive number. By the end of 2006 the company hoped to sell about 10 million game consoles, a respectable amount. However, with 6 million sold by Q4, it is hardly possible that Microsoft managed to sell 10 million by the end of 2006. Therefore, sales for the first year (13 months to be precise) of Xbox 360’s existence could be around 8.5 million. Normally game consoles are not sold very well in their first year and typically enjoy much better success in their second year. In case of Microsoft Xbox 360, its developer only managed to sell about 9.2 million game consoles in 2007, not dramatically more compared to the first year.

It should be noted that Microsoft Corp. typically reports sold-in figures for its Xbox 360 game consoles, which means that those systems have been sold to retailers, but not to end-users. According to VG Chartz market tracker, there have been 16.22 million Xbox 360 sold through to end-users life-to-date.

Still, despite of relatively slow progress in unit sales, Microsoft can boast with huge revenues and software sales.

“In the U.S., through November, we did $3.5 billion of business. That's $1 billion more than Nintendo did on the Wii, and it’s $2 billion more than Sony did on the PS3. And if you look at spend on Xbox 360 games, it’s more than the spending on Wii and PS3 games combined. So our Xbox business is in a very, very good place,” Mr. Bach said.

In addition, Microsoft said that the number of subscribers to its Xbox Live service is growing faster that the software giant had expected. Since Xbox Live is crucial for Microsoft, as it enables the company to sell games and content to Xbox 360 owners, the news may be a particularly good.

“In addition, we continue to grow on Xbox Live, the online gaming service that supports Xbox. I’m excited to announce tonight that we have passed the 10 million member mark for members on Xbox Live, that’s six months faster than we expected to get to that number,” Mr. Bach added.

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 provides a broad set of multimedia capabilities in addition to games. Currently Microsoft Xbox 360 is available for $279, $349 or $449 depending on the version. Microsoft also sells add-on HD DVD drive for the system for $129.