Microsoft announced today that its Xbox 360 video gaming and entertainment system has sold over 10 million units in the U.S., thus making it the first next-gen (now current-gen) video gaming console to break the 10 million mark in the U.S. Microsoft's second video gaming console, now in its third year, narrowly beat Nintendo's Wii, now in its second year, to the punch. As of late April, the statistics were holding at approximately 9.9 million Xbox 360 units sold in the U.S. versus 8.8 million Wii units. Sony's Playstation 3 still has quite a bit of ground to catch up on, lagging behind (as of late April) at only approximately 4 million units sold.

The U.S. install base of Xbox 360 console contributes to global sales of over 19 million units. According to the press release, that sales number of over 19 million units sold worldwide is “more than any other current-generation console”, which is somewhat humorous when you take into consideration the 24.45 million Wii units sold worldwide. Apparently Wii doesn't count for Microsoft, as confirmed by Shacknews earlier today, which received this clarification to the original press release statement, "Xbox 360 has the largest global install base of any current gen. high definition gaming console, Wii excluded.”

Either way, the announcement is a bit of a boon for Microsoft, especially since the company's own publishing house, Microsoft Game Studios, recently announced another major lineup of blockbuster titles scheduled for release later this year, including Epic Games' Gears of War 2 and Silicon Knights' Too Human . Of course, this announcement was only enhanced by the company reaching another milestone – 12 million members on Xbox Live, admittedly thanks to the popularity of Take-Two Interactive's recently released Grand Theft Auto IV , which beat Microsoft's own Halo 3 for the opening day and first week sales records.

According to Microsoft, gamers eager to experience the online features in GTA IV helped boost the global membership of Xbox Live past the 12 million member mark earlier this month. “Reaching an installed base of 10 million consoles in the U.S. is a significant achievement and an essential milestone on the road to market leadership,” said Billy Pidgeon, research manager at IDC, a global provider of market intelligence for consumer technology. “Perhaps more important is the Xbox 360 worldwide online base – 12 million Xbox Live gamers is the largest community in the connected console games sector, which represents the greatest growth opportunity in the console market and where Microsoft has been the leader for two generations.”

Say what you will about whatever problems the console has had in the past (and still has from time to time), it still has some of the best games available on the market today, and it leads with the industry's highest software attach rate over any of the other consoles this generation. GTA IV added yet another game to the list of platinum selling titles – selling over one million units – which, according to the press release, brings the number of platinum titles to more than 16, thus doubling the number of platinum selling titles on Wii and a “16:2 lead over the Playstation 3 in game titles topping one million sales.”

According to our numbers though, there are actually approximately 26 platinum selling Xbox 360 titles, approximately 20 platinum selling Wii titles, excluding Wii Sports , since it comes with the console, and a total of five platinum selling Playstation 3 titles. Whatever Microsoft's numbers are based on, they are clearly not considering worldwide sales.