Lewis: Xbox 360 is at 17.7 million units worldwide

Chris Lewis - vice president of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business in Europe - has claimed that Xbox 360 has now sold 17.7 million units globally.

"We are now at 17.7 million units worldwide," he said. "Europe is a significant part of that and having got to that, surpassed that milestone, we can now feel very good about this being a perfect time to move into the mass-market with amazing value price points. There are some sweet spots of pricing, particularly in parts of Europe, that do genuinely open up larger communities to the console and certainly EUR 199 is one of those pricepoints."

The figure is in contradiction to the 18 million claimed by Microsoft’s John Schappert, speaking at GDC. Microsoft said it had sold 17.7 million machines in January.

Lewis also explained why now was the right time to make price cuts on the console in Europe.

"It was always the plan to move the price point at the right moment. We always said that the strategy was to secure the core gamers in the first wave and then move into an expansion... That's linked to our game portfolio – and we do genuinely, I think, have the best games for both the core and the masses. We've got 150 games that are aimed at three-year-olds and above. We've got parental controls and that whole space there on the front foot in terms of giving control to parents and carers. And we've got diverse entertainment through video store and what we're doing with Live. It's a perfect time to open up the mass-market floodgates."

Read the rest of the interview here.