Xbox Live hits 4 million users

Next month won't just ring in the one-year anniversary of Microsoft's Xbox 360; it will also be the four-year anniversary of Xbox Live. To tout the online gaming service, Microsoft announced the latest stats and figures and revealed a new milestone.

Xbox Live has surpassed 4 million members worldwide, just shy of its sixth iteration, which launches "this fall." The service, which Microsoft describes as "the first and only unified online games and entertainment network," is available in 24 countries, and the company expects it to surpass 6 million members by the summer of 2007.

Other items of note include:

--More than 70 million pieces of content downloaded in Xbox Live Marketplace's first 11 months.

--More than 12 million Xbox Live Arcade downloads in that same period, with a trial-to-purchase ratio of 24 percent (Uno leads all Arcade titles with a 50 percent trial-to-purchase ratio)

--Time logged on Xbox Live playing games has surpassed 2 billion hours

--More than 9 million text and voice messages are sent over Xbox Live each week

A fall dashboard update for the Xbox 360 is expected sometime soon.