Xbox 360 hits 10.4 million, announces IPTV

by Ross Miller { Jan 5th 2007 at 11:45PM }

Microsoft is expected to announce Sunday night that it has sold 10.4 million Xbox 360 units, actually making good on their promise to surpass 10 million by the end of 2006, according to San Jose Mercury News' Dean Takahashi. In addition, Robbie Bach and Bill Gates are to announce that Xbox 360 will be able to act as a set-top box for Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).

As the video marketplace is doing surprisingly well, surpassing other video-on-demand services, offering television as well sounds like a natural progression. However, we're not looking forward to leaving a heat-loving console on continuously, nor does a 20GB HDD sound ideal for any DVR features including in IPTV. Perhaps the announcement will coincide with a new Xbox 360 model and larger HDD?

Bach and Gates are expected to make the announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show Sunday night. Official NPD figures for console hardware sales should be revealed January 11.

[Update: The article has been taken down. It was dated for January 7; was it leaked a bit too early? Also, many are opining in the comments that the 10.4 million figure is "shipped" and not "sold." We'll know the wording chosen by Microsoft on Sunday and the official NPD numbers within the week. Update: The article is back up with only minor (i.e. typographical) revisions.]

Tags: dean takahashi, DeanTakahashi, ip tv, IpTv, xbox 360, Xbox360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Steve @ Jan 5th 2007 11:58PM

The 360's noisy only when the dvd drive is running. The dvd drive wouldn't be needed for IPTV. You'd think a website dedicated to gaming would know more about the consoles.

Storm9 @ Jan 5th 2007 11:59PM

Microsoft did not Sell 10M 360's.
Just watch. They have missed their targets by a gross overestimate the last few times.
No one cares about the Shit box 360.
That has no HDMI and DVD drive is as loud as a 747.

LuckyCharm2007 @ Jan 6th 2007 12:02AM

Yay , Wii60 owns PestStation3.

And just to make it clear Ross , the XBox360 doesnt make noise while on dashboard or running apps , demos , music or videos from HDD or streaming from network , the only thing that makes noise is the DVD drive when running 360 games at full 12x speed.

Mine is a launch console , bought on Nov 21 2005 , it has been more than a year still hasnt overheated. fucking anti-xbox son of a bitch.

Ken Kutaragi @ Jan 6th 2007 12:07AM

@3

And yet it is doing sooo much better than the PS3! LOL

Tony @ Jan 6th 2007 12:07AM

awwwwww. Storm is mad!!

Louis S. @ Jan 6th 2007 12:08AM

Everyone should read the above statement. It's hard to disagree with that!

Louis S. @ Jan 6th 2007 12:09AM

Dammit Krazy Ken and Tony, you ruined my joke...

... wasn't much of a joke anyway...

Avinash_Tyagi @ Jan 6th 2007 12:09AM

Shipped, not sold

Turo @ Jan 6th 2007 12:17AM

i guess those that complain maybe use surround sound anymore/ever did becuase when i have that and my 360 on the console merely purrs like a kitten as the surround sound drowns it out almost completely :D

Turo @ Jan 6th 2007 12:18AM

*dont

iceatcs @ Jan 6th 2007 12:18AM

If it is shipped figure, it will be more make a
sense.
There is hell lots of stock nearly every stores.

5.
Depend what you mean?
I own nextgen systems, I will say PS3 is better system but not gaming yet.
But hey it just got out less than 2 months ago.

Eric @ Jan 6th 2007 12:18AM

IPTV...okay, fine. How about a web browser? Think you can build one of those Microsoft?

KingBroly @ Jan 6th 2007 12:23AM

Microsoft's logic: Shipped to retailers = Sold by Microsoft.

There's no way 10 million people have bought the 360. The news of a possible new 360 unit will keep sales down too.

kromekoran @ Jan 6th 2007 12:23AM

7 iterations of Internet Explorer tells us they can't.

they should contract those Mozilla guys. (integrated spell-checker ftw!)

Louis S. @ Jan 6th 2007 12:23AM

"IPTV...okay, fine. How about a web browser? Think you can build one of those Microsoft?"

Please don't... IE... ugh... As much as I like the 360, I despise IE.

Also, YOU'RE ON A COMPUTER.

Red Viking @ Jan 6th 2007 12:28AM

@15

Well, actually, Microsoft CAN make good products...when they have competition.

freecajunlove @ Jan 6th 2007 12:31AM

"fucking anti-xbox son of a bitch."

LuckyCharm2007,

You do know that 4 out of his 10 top ten games of 2006 were on the Xbox right?

LOVE,
JAY

Erik Novak @ Jan 6th 2007 12:31AM

Seriously, stop the "OMG, ITS NOISY" crap, you can barely hear it...most PCs are much louder. Have you heard how loud the slimline ps2 is? Jeez.

twism10000 @ Jan 6th 2007 12:37AM

"No one cares about the Shit box 360"

I bought one so I care.

Enzogt14 @ Jan 6th 2007 12:40AM

@5

How long has the 360 been out for??
How long has the PS3 been out for??

KC @ Jan 6th 2007 12:41AM

Actually my slimline ps2 is dead quiet. I dont know what one you're playing on.

But there are in fact some 360s that are quieter than others. I have two of them. Ones louder. But heres the things, dont ya'll play with SOUND on? If so, you cant hear it over the music or shooting or whatnot.

Besides, nothing beats the dreamcasts noise factor :)

One final note, I dont see how it sold 10 mil either. I say shipped.

Jackal @ Jan 6th 2007 12:48AM

Why would you want a browser on the 360. The PSP's browser sucks. The Wii browser is buggy as hell. If I want to browse the web I'll do it on my PC with my nice 20" monitor, a keyboard and mouse. Even on the Dreamcast you could tell that browsing the web on a console was a bad idea.

squidward @ Jan 6th 2007 12:55AM

They've SHIPPED 10 mil. They've sold closer to 8 mil. www.vgcharts.org

Dirtyboy @ Jan 6th 2007 12:58AM

Link to story now dead.

Miibody @ Jan 6th 2007 1:02AM

Sorry but I wouldn't believe MS.
They're also the ones boasting their "holiday win" and those numbers were from November (when their competition hadn't even released their consoles until later that month).
Most annoying was every website including this one ran the MS numbers, but never informed their readers that to MS the "holiday" season is November....not December.

Take it with a grain of salt people.

tack @ Jan 6th 2007 1:10AM

No one I know uses the wii browser. Its dumb. They tried it on dreamcast 7 years ago. Nothing beats a PC for internet. So unless your upgrading from WebTV, shut up about browser's on a console.

Endejas @ Jan 6th 2007 1:15AM

Unlike Sony's produced ready-for-retail numbers (i.e. "shipped = sold"), and Nintendo's actually sold to consumers, Microsoft accounts their "sold" numbers to how many they have sold the retailers (Best Buy, Game Stop, Wal-Mart, etc.). They've already made their money, but the 360 isn't in the consumers hands.

IPTV is also very unexciting. I was expecting something bigger for CES.. w/e, you can't put all your releases so early in the year I guess.

a2 @ Jan 6th 2007 1:19AM

This topic comes up every time.

Shipped = sold to the company that makes the product. It's not like they don't get paid until the item sells at the store. Microsoft sold the 360 the moment it shipped. Bill is in the mail, thank you for your business.

Did anyone else catch a recent article, I forget where I read it, but it had something to do with NPD data, and there was the revelation that Sony was counting PS3 consoles in warehouses in their numbers, which is not even shipped. But perhaps it was sold, and intended to ship.

Anyway, until the company announces the numbers or list the number of units sold in their quarterly report, we can only speculate the total number of items sold.

micheal82 @ Jan 6th 2007 1:19AM

@squidward vgcharts.org has old, inaccurate numbers. It's over 9 mil sold. Sony claimed to have sold over 100 mil PS2 but those are number of systems that has been shipped not sold. MS normally use numbers of sold systems as with the xbox that sold 24 million systems over its life span and they shipped over 26 million of them.

GL @ Jan 6th 2007 1:19AM

[sarcasm]Check out Peter Moore's 12" inch biceps! Impressive! [/sarcasm]

tack @ Jan 6th 2007 1:22AM

I doubt there are millions of 360's sitting in a bestbuy or a walmart warehouse somewhere. Warehousing inventory costs money, the longer you have to store it the less profitable the product becomes. Its a fact of all retail, but especially electronics.

Embassy @ Jan 6th 2007 1:29AM

i guess people forget ( or refuse to acknowledge) that retailers BUY these consoles from Microsoft...so shipped = sold. retailers arent gonna buy exponentailly more than they need.

potato @ Jan 6th 2007 1:36AM

The "it's shipped not sold!" comments demonstrate a lack of understanding of the retail chain. Stores, especially big-box electronics stores, hate keeping stock. Prices for things are dropping *all the damned time* and new models are rolled out weekly - to keep a large amount of stock is death. It's a fine art walking the line between potentially selling out (and missing out of sales) and ordering too many and then taking a loss on unsold goods.

When MS says they shipped 10.4M units, the number sold is *decently* close to that. I suspect it may be closer to 9.5M, but that's still a load of 360's in people's living rooms right now.

Doomstalk @ Jan 6th 2007 2:07AM

34) Indeed, www.nexgenwars.com cites 9,598,801 units sold. Might be higher now, though. I haven't seen their numbers updated in almost a week.

Brian @ Jan 6th 2007 2:47AM

Who cares? Microsoft will hit 10 million no later than the end of January, no matter what.

Wii is not a direct competitor

PS3 is a... well it's too early to call. HOWEVER:

Nobody who wants it is willing to pay $600 for it.

18 PS3's have been sitting in Best Buy in a VERY busy shopping district here in Kansas City. Not ONE has sold in the last 24 hours.

Here's a picture I took:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b27/the_uber_smurf/unwanted.jpg

Low console sales = low game sales = low quality games (because developers can't sell enough game to pay off their investment)

NOTE: I originally made this comment Dec 29th.

I, Robot @ Jan 6th 2007 3:01AM

Yes, the 360 is noisy, so what! What do you want it to do? Sing you a lullaby. It’s a game system, not a “Big Bird Sing-N’-Sleep”. Get a grip. Turn the X-box off when your done – problem solved.

Scott @ Jan 6th 2007 3:37AM

My machine was MFG. in mid December of '05

Not really EXTREMELY noisy. But I know when it's on

And although I noticed it gets warm, it also STAYS that warm it never gets worse. and It's not like I play with my cock RIGHT UP AGAINST the machine so nothing on ME gets to hot. Also it ventilated decently, just like all my systems are and will be.

How old are you people? And why don't you treat you machines better...

And although this is a "blog" or whatever...the 'tinge' of biased in news postings is always evident and clearly not appreciated by a lot of your readers so maybe you should tone it down a bit.

If they really sold 10 mil - congrats, where's my cookie?

*cookie here means EXTREMELY discounted larger hearddrive since I know it won't be free*

Otter @ Jan 6th 2007 5:42AM

They dont need to give us a bigger hdd, just let us store downloads on usb connected removable storage media. I mean games as well as movies and trailers and stuff, if we could either copy them to a pc on the network or to a removable drive then it would satisfy everyone and they wouldn't have people moaning in 6 months when their 120gb drives are full.

Jay @ Jan 6th 2007 8:26AM

So Microsoft screwed over 10.4million current 360 owners then, wow. Its nice to see Microsoft stick by their "future-proof" console.

Tristan @ Jan 6th 2007 8:38AM

We all know that the Sony fanboys are the ones complaining about it being shipped or sold. If you go on nexgenware you will see they are pretty close and they are sold on there. I don't think nexgenwars can get every sale so we will have to see.

mark @ Jan 6th 2007 9:18AM

"2. The 360's noisy only when the dvd drive is running. The dvd drive wouldn't be needed for IPTV. You'd think a website dedicated to gaming would know more about the consoles."

You showed them! /rollseyes

J.Goodwin @ Jan 6th 2007 9:20AM

Sold and shipped to retailers = "sold" for Microsoft (which is what they're always going to report because their audience is investors)

Sold to end users = "sold" for GameStop and other retailers (this is what is estimated by NPD, who are attempting to gauge retail activity)

However, the wrinkle is that Sony reports units as sold when they ship from their factory to their own warehouse. Which is a really misleading way of reporting your revenue unless your units are in transit for only a short period of time (in this case weeks, so clearly not) and don't spend much time in warehouses. Of course, it's possible that they drop ship directly from the factory to retailers, but I doubt it.

GL @ Jan 6th 2007 10:01AM

Ohhooo! 10 Mil? Hmmm, guess what I heard? engadget.com has a story on how the 360v2 will come out in June 2007 with HDMI port on the back. Guess those 10 MIL got scewed with an outdated console.

Microsoft said a year ago that "they would support HDMI when needed." But at the same time they didn't want to imply that the current 360 did not support it. Only the future 360v2. LOL! Guess they didn't want people to hold off and have it negatively affect sales.

Oh, and Brian. I can also walk into a Best Buy or any store and take a picture of a stack of 360s and claim, "No body wants them." Blah, blah, blah...You're picture is meaningless. Sooner or later Sony was going to fix their production problems and at least catchup with demand. Now, at least people can walk in a buy one when ever they want.

FrankTheCrank @ Jan 6th 2007 10:48AM

Microsoft's BIG PLAN FINALLY REVEALED!!!!

Their not interested in Videogames...their interested in video distribution. The videogame portion of it s just a TROJAN HORSE.

I knew M$ was up to something.

xbots just got pwned!!

Petey @ Jan 6th 2007 11:02AM

NPD says 3.5M 360 sold in Northen America, since the 360 sold less in Europe/Autralia & only 300.000 in Asia, how come they have sold 10M???? They have SHIPPED 10M & sold a little bit more than 7M, the 360 penetration rate is even lower than the original XBox, that's a fact!!! Of course MS has to spin these "not great" facts into some positive PR bull...

Pete C @ Jan 6th 2007 11:05AM

Um, a media hub was one of the core goals of the system when it was conceived. Perhaps you are the one that just got pwned because you don't have one.

Yeah, and OMG I am so screwed because I don't have a larger hard drive and HDMI. My entire library is just a pile of plastic now because a new console revision is coming that features a different display option! I AM SO SCREWED!!!

pryingender @ Jan 6th 2007 11:21AM

I don't know how accurate this site is, I've seen it cited a few times before, but they show the 360 selling pretty darn close to 10 million (9,615,860). They say it is only an estimate though...

http://nexgenwars.com/

Digi Smalls @ Jan 6th 2007 11:39AM

wow. people are really grasping at straws now.

so HDMI was worth waiting a year to play next-gen games? so that maybe you just _might_ see a difference on a 55-65" screen? congratulations a press release from your favorite company just deprived you of a year's worth of HD gaming.

microsoft's trojan horse not being about gaming is the best one yet.

even though PS3 took away rumble (even on steering wheels), came out with anemic online, no headset, alienates thousands of HDTVs by leaving out a scaler and makes your PS2 games look worse than they did lastgen, launched with just 1 decent launch game, and makes you pay up front for $200 for an HD movie player that will double your games load times....yeah, it's clearly MS that doesn't care about games.

with PS3, you already payed $500-$600 for your movie-format 'trojan horse' (+ whatever you payed for that HDMI cable). meanwhile that 9-10 million who bought 360 have been playing a huge variety of HD GAMES out since last year.

.