Microsoft’s Xbox Live has reached six million members worldwide four months ahead of the target it had set for June this year, the company revealed yesterday.

According to Microsoft, following the launch of the Xbox Live network in November 2002, gamers have spent over 2.3 billion hours on the network playing games with friends across the world – equal to 95 million days of gaming or over 260,000 years.

With the Halo 2 game on the traditional Xbox and the Xbox 360, gamers are estimated to have spent over 710 million hours playing online with over half a billion games played.

Microsoft said that the 18-34-year old male audience is comparable in size to the same audience tuning in to see network TV shows like The Office or CSI.

The Xbox Live site is also leveraging over two million text and voice messages sent every day between members on the service.

The company added that more than 70pc of Xbox Live members are downloading content from Marketplace, driving more than 135 million downloads since the launch of Xbox 360.

In all more than 10 million Xbox 360s have hit store shelves since launch in November 2005.

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