MS memo: Xbox 360 to have 'biggest year in video game history,' XBL surpasses 10m users

Mercury News writer and Microsoft guru Dean Takahashi has published a memo penned by Microsoft games chief Don Mattrick, who expects that "Xbox 360 is on track to register the biggest year in video game history."

According to Mattrick North American hardware, software and accessory sales for Xbox 360 exceeded $3.5 billion, reportedly $1 billion more than Wii and $2 billion more than PlayStation 3. "When December data is added," he said, "we expect Xbox 360 in 2007 to have generated more calendar year revenue than any other gaming platform ever, including PS2 at its peak."

Mattrick's biggest claim comes in implicitly hailing the Xbox 360 as this generation's console winner. "History has shown that the eventual winner of each console generation was the console that generated the most 3rd party revenue, and according to the most recent NPD data, Xbox 360 generated more 3rd party revenue in 2007 than Nintendo and Sony combined."

Unsurprisingly not mentioned in the memo is the Xbox 360's performance in Japan. The memo also revealed some new Xbox Live statistics, including mention that the service has surpassed 10 million Xbox Live users, "over six months before our stated goal of July 2008 announced at E3 last year." We've compiled those after the break.

• Halo 3 players have "logged over 1.5 billion multiplayer matches since launch – that's an average of 14 million matches a day."

• "Since its launch, Xbox LIVE has hosted over 4.9 billion hours on the network – that's equal to 204 million days or more than 560,000 years of gaming."

• "Right now Xbox LIVE Marketplace features over 3,500 total hours of downloadable content and has hosted more than 380 million downloads."

• "More than 500 hours of content from the ABC Television Network, ABC Family, ABC News, Disney Channel and Toon Disney" is coming via the new deal with ABC and MGM.

[Via GameDaily]