NPD: Xbox Live growth spearheads strong January for Microsoft

Xbox 360 has continued to defy expectations by posting yet another monthly annual sales increase, with January sales of Xbox 360 climbing by 33 per cent year-on-year to hit 309,000 units

according to NPD

.

January was also the strongest ever month for the firm’s online platform Xbox Live, which saw a record number of new users sign up to the service. Microsoft’s Halo Wars demo was also a record breaker, seeing 2m downloads in its first week.

In addition, the average number of movies watched on the firm’s North American-only Netflix film rental service was 16.

360 also claimed five of the NPD’s top selling games for the month, with EA’s Left 4 Dead, Skate 2 and Lord of the Rings: Conquest, Activision’s Call of Duty: World at War and Microsoft’s Gears fo War 2 continuing to perform at retail.

Third party game sales reached $139m for the month. Microsoft adds that life-to-date third party titles are higher on Xbox 360 than PS3 or Wii, and that the console currently has 132 titles with a MEtacritic score of 80 or higher. This compares to 90m on PS3 and 42 on Wii.