360 & PS3 sales numbers announced at CES

[PrototypeMike]

At CES Last night Microsoft released unit sales figures for the console: 39 million Xbox 360s sold worldwide, with over 20 million Xbox Live members--during the week after Christmas, Xbox Live reached a record-breaking 2.2 million simultaneous users, with 1 new member joining the service each second. Since the original Xbox launched in November of 2002, 500 million games have sold, contributing to a $20 Billion Xbox ecosystem.

In a well-timed bit of counter-spin, Sony released unit sales figures for the competing PlayStation 3 console just over an hour before Ballmer's keynote. 3.8 million PS3s were sold worldwide during the five weeks of the holiday season, a 76% increase compared to the same time last year--a record for the console. Sony is also boasting 38 million registered accounts for its PlayStation Network.

So who's winning the console war? Given the number of footnote explanations in Sony's release, and the missing details from Microsoft's, it's still anybody's guess.