San Francisco - Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) sold 4.3 million Xbox 360 video game consoles during the fourth quarter of 2007, and has now sold a total of 17.7 million worldwide since the device's release in 2005, Reuters reported.

The company said the sales spike was aided by popular titles for the platform, including "Halo 3" and "Mass Effect."

Microsoft also recently experienced problems with users trying to connect to its Xbox Live online game service, and said it will offer all of the more than 8 million users on the network a free downloadable game to compensate for the problems.

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http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080104/microsoft_xbox_corrected.html (Reuters)