New Video, Big Numbers for 360 at CES

And MS signals a shift in focus to the rest of the family.

The crucial Christmas period has come and gone and the main players in the video game world are sifting through the debris left over after the retail storm to collect their receipts.

Microsoft has reason to be happy. The company saw out the year with a slew of high-profile releases, including Halo 3, Mass Effect and BioShock.

Halo 3 in particular has proved itself worthy of the attention it got when it was released in September. By the end of the year, Microsoft said, the game had sold more than 8.1 million copies around the world. Mass Effect did well too, selling 1.6 million copies in the closing weeks of 2007.

All this helped the Xbox 360 reach another high mark. Microsoft said this week that it has now sold close to 18 million Xbox 360s worldwide.

Most of these consoles are online too as there are now more than 10 million registered users on Xbox Live.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was in Las Vegas this week to deliver the keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show, where all the biggest technology companies have assembled to show off the gadgets and appliances shoppers can expect in the year ahead.

During his keynote, Gates emphasised the Digital Decade, focusing on the role of on-demand digital video downloads. As part of his speech, he announced two new partnerships.

Xbox 360 owners in the US will soon have a wider selection of content on the Xbox Live Video Store. Microsoft said it is working with Disney, MGM and ABC to bring movies and TV shows to the service.

Among the video content will be available starting in late January will be TV shows Lost, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives and also movies such as Terminator, Silence of the Lambs and The Usual Suspects.

Though the Video Store has been growing steadily over the past two years in the US, it's only now getting started in the UK. But Microsoft has other video plans for outside the US too.

The company said it has signed a deal with BT to bring the company's on-demand IPTV service, BT Vision, to the Xbox 360 in the middle of 2008. The service will only be available to BT Broadband subscribers.

Microsoft's increased emphasis on digital video downloads comes at a time that it and other supporters of HD-DVD (one of the two formats vying to take over from the DVD) are dealing with the news that movie giant Warner Bros has pledged its allegiance to rival format Blu-ray.

Both Sony, one of the creators of Blu-ray, and Microsoft are trying to make their boxes be about more than just games.

The Consumer Electronics Association is predicting that 2008 will see the growth of the games industry slow as hardware sales, boosted by the introduction of new consoles over the past two years, flatten off somewhat, giving way to games and whatever else companies can get onto their systems.

As part of this, Microsoft will in 2008 begin to make more effort to reach the casual audience.

In an internal memo to staff, published by the San Jose Mercury News, Microsoft's Don Mattrick wrote:

"We've led our industry in developing and publishing great games on a platform that is equal parts hardware, software and services. We've led in driving growth for our partners at record rates. Now, it is our mission to fully deliver on our promise for Xbox 360 to be the console of choice for everyone in the family."

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo