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"We believe the exclusivity of the downloadable content combined with our excellent Xbox LIVE online experience drew more Australian gamers to the Xbox 360 to play Grand Theft Auto IV," said Jeremy Hinton, Australian Xbox Product Marketing Manager.

And Australian Xbox 360 owners will also now be able to enjoy the multiplayer version of the game using the Xbox LIVE service, which allows them to play against over 10 million other Xbox LIVE users globally.

Grand Theft Auto IV owners will be spending the next few weeks attempting to complete the full game but Microsoft believes the Xbox LIVE numbers will increase significantly as more players move from the singe-player campaign to multiplayer mayhem on Xbox LIVE.

"Already our global Xbox LIVE statistics show that gamers played over 9,700,000 hours of Grand Theft Auto IV online multiplayer within the first week of launch with your average user playing for 239 minutes," added Hinton.

Global Xbox LIVE statistics show that on the first week of launch:

More than 2.3 million people have played "Grand Theft Auto IV" on Xbox LIVE
Xbox Live has reached one million concurrent users.
The average gamer is spending more than four hours playing "Grand Theft Auto IV" in the first week.