Ahead of the next-generation Xbox's launch later in the year, a Microsoft exec has disclosed the number of Xbox consoles currently in the households of customers around the world, during the D:Dive Into Media conference. 

According to Yusuf Mehdi, chief of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, Xbox consoles out on the market amount to a staggering 76 million, up from the 70 million reported last September. 

Mehdi went on to talk some Xbox metrics, indicating that the platform has moved past a reliance solely on games and into the general sector of entertainment. According to the exec, 38 per cent of Xbox users are women, 51 per cent of whom have children. He also said that 18 billion hours of media have been consumed. We assume Netflix has played a huge roll. 

As for the accessories focused around the Xbox, Mehdi disclosed 24 million Kinects have been sold and 46 million Xbox Live accounts are registered, up from 20 million and 40 million respectively.  

To do a bit of comparing, last November Sony disclosed Playstation sales had reached 70 million. If Microsoft has kept up with the current pace of its Xbox 360 sales, the folks in Redmond are still beating the Japan-based company by just a tad. 

Despite how numbers are looking right now, things are about to change dramatically this year. Both companies are set to announce new consoles, believed to be for shipment by Christmas season to juicy plenty of sales. Microsoft has yet to talk a launch date, but Sony has an event planned for the end of February. 

As you would expect, Mehdi declined to comment on any Xbox 720 speculation.