Xbox Live Marketplace Surpasses 24 Million Downloads As Xbox Live Brings E3 Home To Gamers Around The World

Xbox Live becomes the world's largest platform for high-definition on-demand content

London, May 18, 2006—Xbox Live, the first and only unified online games and entertainment network, is now the world's largest platform for high-definition on-demand content, surpassing 24 million downloads following the launch of Xbox 360 in the US on November 22, 2005.

For the full week of E3 – the biggest video game industry event of the year - Xbox 360 gamers around the world were invited to jump in to Xbox Live through "E3: Bringing It Home," and receive a full week's Gold membership for free, courtesy of Verizon in the US and adidas in Europe.

Over 1.5 million gamers connected to Xbox Live last week, downloading exclusive content direct from the show floor, including the latest high-definition game demos and trailers, such as Halo 3, Gears of War and Fable 2; game add-on content, such as Map Packs from Call of Duty ^® 2 and additional quests from The Elder Scrolls^®IV: Oblivion^TM , movie trailers and music videos, such as "Nacho Libre" and "Over My Head" (The Fray) along with celebrity Game with Fame multiplayer sessions with Dave Navarro (Panic Channel), Method Man and Jenny McCarthy.

Xbox Live members downloaded over 5 million pieces of gaming and entertainment content during the 7 days of E3: Bringing It Home, consuming more than 600 Terabytes of data, shattering all previous records for the network. At the same time, traffic on Xbox.com doubled during the week, driving more than 6 million unique users to the site as well.

"Only Xbox Live could bring E3 home in high definition for consumers around the world," said Peter Moore, corporate vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft. "The sheer volume of downloads during E3 week was simply staggering. To put it in perspective, all the printed material in the U.S. Library of Congress is estimated to be about 20 terabytes, and Xbox Live delivered 30 times that amount in just 7 days. While others talk about online entertainment in the console space, we are delivering it in glorious high-definition to the millions of members we have across 24 countries. "

The eagerly anticipated Halo 3 high-definition trailer proved to be the most popular download of the week:

Top 10 downloads during E3: Bringing It Home:

1. Halo 3 Game Trailer (Microsoft Game Studios)
2. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Free Playable Demo (Capcom)
3. Test DriveUnlimited Free Playable Demo (Atari)
4. MotoGP^TM'06 Free Playable Demo (THQ)
5. X-Men^TM: The Last Stand Pack (20th Century Fox)
6. Gears of War GameTrailer (Microsoft Game Studios)
7. Call of Duty ^® 2: Skirmish Map Pack (Activision)
8. Spiderman^TM 3 Game Trailer (Activision)
9. Fable 2 Trailer (Microsoft Game Studios)
10. Uno^® Xbox Live Arcade Game (Microsoft Game Studios)