2010 was the Xbox 360's best year yet

You might expect consoles to sell best in the first few years after they're released, then taper off, but the Xbox 360's sixth year on the market was its best yet. It wasn't a small growth, either. 42% more Xbox 360s were sold in the US in 2010 than in 2009.

That includes the 1.9 million units sold during last month's holiday rush, which depleted Microsoft's inventory. The company has said that sales were so high it might even have trouble keeping stock for the first couple months of 2011. The holiday sales were, of course, spurred by the launch of Kinect.

50 million Xbox 360s have been sold since the platform launched in late 2005, and there's no indication that a successor is coming out any time soon. Kinect is effectively Microsoft's next system, and it'll probably be a while before its application is perfected.

Jan 14, 2011

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