Xbox Live hits 24m downloads

Microsoft has declared Xbox Live to be the world's largest platform for high-definition on-demand content, after a hugely successful E3 week saw over 1.5 million gamers connecting to the service.

Over 24 million pieces of content - ranging from game demos and videos to movie trailers, music videos and add-on content for popular games - have now been downloaded from the Xbox Live Marketplace service.

Five million of those were downloaded last week, when Microsoft's "E3: Bringing It Home" campaign allowed gamers around the world to access content which had been revealed for the first time at E3, including videos and demos of upcoming titles.

Over 600 terabytes of data were transferred over the network during the week, a figure which represents 30 times more data than is found in all the printed material in the US Library of Congress, according to Microsoft games boss Peter Moore, who thankfully did not go on to provide the standard British comparison of telling us how many double decker buses it equates to.

The success of the service during the week was also aided by a programme which allowed gamers to experience the Gold version of the Xbox Live service - normally reserved for subscription-paying members - for free, courtesy of sponsors Verizon in the USA and Adidas in Europe.

Unsurprisingly, the single most popular item downloaded from Xbox Live Marketplace during the week was the trailer video for Halo 3, but the rest of the download chart shows that playable demos are more popular than videos in general - with the playable demos of Lost Planet, Test Drive Unlimited and MotoGP '06 occupying places two through four respectively.

"Only Xbox Live could bring E3 home in high definition for consumers around the world," commented Peter Moore in an official statement today. "While others talk about online entertainment in the console space, we are delivering it in glorious high-definition to the millions of members we have across 24 countries."