Microsoft Says 2012 Will be Biggest Year Yet for Xbox 360

In an interview with Gamasutra, Microsoft’s director of global marketing first party games, Steve Beinner, said that 2011 was Microsoft’s biggest year for the Xbox 360 so far. In fact, Beinner said it was the biggest year in Xbox history.

Microsoft has some data to back up those claims, too. Back in December, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said that the Xbox 360 accounted for “nearly 40 percent of annual 2011 new physical retail sales across all categories.”

Microsoft has no plans to take let up on all of that momentum, either. Beinner says that Microsoft is aiming to make 2012 the biggest year for the Xbox 360 yet, even bigger than 2011’s impressive hardware and software sales performance.

“It’s early in 2012 and we’re just peeling the curtain back, but stay tuned,” Beinner told Gamasutra. “”We look forward to continuing to build on the momentum we have and continue the strategies we have.”

Part of Microsoft’s strategy for 2012 will be continued support of the company’s Kinect peripheral, which Gamasutra says has an install base of about 18 million units. Microsoft will continue their strategy of offering games that exclusively use the Kinect, as well as those which work in concert with the standard Xbox 360 controller.

Beinner also said that Microsoft was committed to continually improving the Xbox Live service. “You see us doing things on the Live service to keep the development community engaged — doing things to update the service, to continue to serve up new and unique content.”

You can hear more from Microsoft’s Steve Beinner at this link.