With people mercilessly counting every gold coin they spend, Microsoft's latest effort to get people buying Xbox 360 accessories seems to have had a positive effect. As of March 16, anyone who buys an accessory for their Xbox 360 will get 20 per cent of the recommended retail price back, providing they send away the for rebate before June 30.

　　During the week of March 16-22, the first week the rebate was on offer, the black wireless controller saw a whopping 102 per cent increase in sales over the previous week. Not too far behind that was the environmentally friendly option for using your controller: the quick charge kit, which grew 88 per cent. Even the extortionately priced 120GB Hard Drive increased in sales by 82 per cent! Other accessories to see a significant increase in sales include the wireless racing wheel, Messenger kit, and the 60GB Live Starter pack at 77, 72 and 48 per cent growth respectively.

　　Jeremy Hinton, Xbox group category manager said that ""Recent sales of Xbox hard Drives and Live Starter Packs show Aussies are spending time online with our social entertainment network and require more storage space for downloads such as games, music, demos and add-ons." One interesting figure put out by Microsoft this morning showed that more than 4.2 million items were downloaded off Xbox Live last year.