Xbox 360 sales hit 55 million, Xbox Live users top 35 million

Monday morning at 9:30 a.m. PDT, Microsoft will kick off the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo with its media briefing from Los Angeles. Today, the company laid the foundation for its presentation by releasing some new statistics about the performance of its Xbox 360 console and its online service, Xbox Live.

Three days after revealing the Xbox 360 had sold 53 million units, the company is now trumpeting the fact the console has, in fact, sold 55 million units in 38 countries life-to-date. According to Microsoft, the 360 has seen 29 percent year-over-year sales growth in the first four months of 2011, which the company claims more than triples the growth rate of the PlayStation 3. In the US, the 360 has been the top-selling home console for 10 of the past 11 months, thanks in part to the introduction of the slimline Xbox 360 S at E3 2010.

As for Xbox Live, the online service now has 35 million "active users" worldwide, up from 30 million in January. (The company did not break out how many were Xbox Live free subscribers and how many paid for access to Xbox Live Gold.) On average, these users spent 60 hours per month on Xbox Live for a cumulative 2.1 billion hours on the service. While the majority of that usage is gaming, this week Microsoft vice president of corporate communications Frank Shaw said that some 40 percent of Xbox Live usage is for "entertainment," including social networking and video.

Microsoft also reiterated that the Kinect has sold 10 million units to date, a fact first revealed in March when the motion-sensing system set a Guinness World Record for being the "fastest-selling consumer electronics device."