Microsoft is blowing its own trumpet today, and for very good reason. Apparently sales of Xbox 360 consoles have passed the 30 million mark globally, with its Xbox Live community swelling to more than 20 million active members. After the biggest year in its history in 2008, Xbox 360 achieved the highest percentage growth in hardware sales of any console so far in 2009, up 28 percent over the previous year.

Over the course of this console generation, U.S. consumers alone have spent $14.5 billion across all categories on Xbox 360 at retail. To date, consumers have downloaded nearly 1 billion pieces of gaming and entertainment content from Xbox Live Marketplace, including a broad array of high- and standard-definition movies and TV shows from studios and networks around the world.

In addition, Xbox 360 continues to be the platform of choice for the industry’s top games, generating $5.9 billion in sales to date at U.S. retail for third-party publishers, which is more than those of current-generation consoles combined. Xbox 360 also leads current-generation consoles in game purchases, with consumers owning an average of 8.3 titles each.

Activity on Xbox Live surged following the launch of the New Xbox Experience in November 2008. Since that time, the community has recorded a 136 percent increase in new members, TV and movie downloads have more than doubled, and purchases of games, Game Add-ons and more on Xbox live arcade have increased by 70 percent. Consumers can expect more trumpet blowing from Microsoft next week as Xbox 360 kicks off at the E3 convention.