CNET News.com

U.S consumers bought more Windows Media Center-equipped PCs than the standard edition of Windows XP last month and sales of Media Center will reach 10 million by the end of March, a Microsoft executive said Tuesday.

Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Windows eHome Division, disclosed the sales numbers at a keynote speech here at Mix ‘06, a Microsoft conference aimed at Web developers and designers.

Belfiore also demonstrated the upcoming enhancements to Media Center, which will come out with Windows Vista at the end of this year, saying it will “blur the line between television and interactive video content.”

Sales of Media Center, a higher-end version of Windows XP for handling multimedia content, were sluggish in the first few years of its life, but have picked up as Microsoft has cut prices and dropped a requirement that PCs that run Media Center come with a built-in TV tuner.

Belfiore said that sales of Media Center are now running at 1 million units per month and that the company is “highly confident” total sales will top 10 million by the end of the month.

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