It was already written on the wall and early video game sales numbers confirmed that the Xbox 360 had great holiday sales. Today Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 had overall its biggest year in 2008.
Microsoft is proud to have reached in 2008 a life-to-date unit sales of Xbox 360 of 28 million consoles worldwide, expanding the Xbox 360 lead over Sony PS3 to more than 8 million units.

The Xbox LIVE community also grew to more than 17 million active members, as online consumer spending increased 84% from last year. Since the launch of the Xbox 360 three years ago, more than $1 billion has been spent on Xbox LIVE.
Between Christmas and New Year’s Day, Xbox LIVE experienced its busiest week ever, with a record of more than 1.5 million concurrent members online.
Xbox 360 is experiencing record-setting sales around the globe, particularly in Japan and Europe, nearly doubling market share in these key territories.
In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) specifically, Xbox 360 has now sold more than 8 million units, extending its lead over the PS3 by more than 1 million units. Sales numbers via this Microsoft announcement.
Microsoft did everything right in 2008 in regards to the Xbox 360. The new NXE is great, the prices have been cut low enough and Netflix movie streaming is great. It will be exciting to see how they can keep up the momentum. It is though a major achievement after early 2008 it looked a bit bleak as Microsoft had to abandon the HD DVD format support.
See also the disappointing PS3 Holiday Sales.