• The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday, January 10, 2007 11 AM

Hollywood is having an easy time reaching one of its core consumer markets with Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace. There are some 5 million members of Xbox Live, the majority are Xbox 360 owners. This means movie studios creating blockbusters like "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "Mission: Impossible III" can produce HD-quality trailers that potentially reach millions of 16-34 year olds.

In addition, Xbox Live users have access to more than 1,000 hours of entertainment programming, including TV shows, music videos and movies that can be purchased through the store. So far, Xbox Live users have downloaded more than 100 million pieces of content.

Peter Moore, Microsoft's vice president of interactive entertainment business, says the idea is to expand the Xbox 360's appeal beyond video games for those who don't play them. "When we look at this business, as popular as video games are in the U.S., they are still only penetrating 35% of households," he said, "so there's a huge upside for bringing consoles into homes."

At the Consumer Electronics Show this week, Microsoft announced that it's sold more than 11 million Xbox 360 consoles, placing it firmly in front of both Nintendo and Sony, whose next-generation consoles were launched in November.

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