July was a solid month for Xbox 360. We dominated the E3 landscape, took home 11 Game Critics Awards and closed out a profitable year with $2.1 billion in growth in our Entertainment & Devices Division (Microsoft internal data).

Just this week, G4TV, unveiled its fan-voted G-Phoria Award winners for 2008 and G4’s audience made it emphatically clear that Microsoft offers the most impressive gaming lineup in the industry, naming Xbox 360 Console of the Year, “Halo 3” the overall Game of the Year, and “Mass Effect” the Best Role-Playing Game of the Year. “Halo 3” earned an additional four nominations in the Best Shooter, Best Online Multiplayer Game, Longest Lasting Game, and Best Downloadable Content categories.

Overall, Xbox 360 garnered the most honorees with 15, followed by the Playstation 3’s 14, while Nintendo’s Wii offered only four winning titles. The Xbox 360’s strengths were apparent as it was the only platform to offer all five nominees in the Best Downloadable Content category, and four nominees (including the winners) in both the Best Online Multiplayer and Best Shooter categories.

And we’re projecting 2009 will be even bigger – we’ll sell more consoles, sell more games, and continue to grow our online community at Xbox LIVE.

The NPD Group issued its July 2008 sales data today showing Xbox 360 as the current generation leader in consumer spend, game sales and software attach rate. Here is a snapshot:

· Since its launch, consumers have spent more than $10.4 billion on the Xbox 360 platform in the U.S., capturing 49% of share. (July NPD data)
· 205,000 Xbox 360 consoles were sold in July. (July NPD data)
· Xbox 360 titles accounted for $129 million, or 34% share, in game sales in July. Of that, Xbox 360 generated $121 million at retail for third-party publishers, or 42% of share. (July NPD data)
· Xbox 360 games accounted for four of the top ten games in July. (July NPD data)
· Xbox 360 has a record-setting attach rate of 7.9 games per console, the highest attach rate in history for a console at this point in its lifecycle. (July NPD data)

The announcements we made at E3 come to life beginning this fall with the new Xbox experience which will evolve and deepen the experience for hardcore gamers while inviting a whole new audience to come and play. Couple that with our exclusive partnership with Netflix and a blockbuster games library boasting more than 1,000 titles including “Lips,” “You’re in the Movies” and Best Action Game of E3 “Gears of War 2” (Game Critics Awards), and Xbox 360 is on track to deliver a record-breaking holiday and keep the momentum going into 2009.