Microsoft: 76 million Xbox 360s sold

Microsoft talks about the "entertainment growth" of the Xbox and looks to interactive television as the future.

In a media release from the D: Dive in Media conference, Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, and Nancy Tellem, president of entertainment and digital media, talked a lot about the current state of the Xbox 360.

Amongst some of the data is the impressive 76 million Xbox 360s that have been sold worldwide. The Kinect has proven popular as well, with 24 million sold, and Xbox Live now has 46 million members.

The document focused on the Xbox's place as part of a greater entertainment system, moving away from just video games. "Yes, we started with video games, but we have been on a journey to make Xbox the centre of every household's entertainment," Mehdi said.

Tellem, meanwhile, is running the Xbox Entertainment Studios in LA, where Microsoft hopes to create "interactive TV" and more Xbox Live community programming:

When I worked in traditional TV, we would find ourselves saying things like "Wouldn't it be cool if we could add an interactive aspect directly into the show and engage directly with the viewers?" With Xbox, that is possible today.

Obviously, this also includes advertising. Xbox is now working on "NUads" — interactive advertising that "harnesses Kinect and natural user interface" to create "user engagement" for ads.

While gaming obviously remains important for the Xbox, it seems that the next generation of console will be built with Microsoft's future of the TV" very much in mind.