Windows Phone 7 saw 80 per cent increase in the number of developers registering apps and games with the platform in two months since its launch, Todd Brix, Senior Director for Windows Marketplace at Microsoft, wrote in the official blog.

Microsoft is reported to have started cross-promotion for WP7 including listing WP7 apps on their Bing search engine, and featuring them on the XBox 360 dashboard.

“We’re heading into one of the biggest shopping weeks of the year and we’re on pace to offer roughly 3,000 apps and games by the end of this week,” said Brix.

Since the developer community is placing some big bets with WP7 this holiday, the company has come with more promotional plans for apps and games.

“We’re using our own popular Bing decision engine to further showcase developers’ Windows Phone 7 apps through Bing’s Visual Search capabilities in the US and UK. This allows anyone with a browser to easily find, view and access the growing list of apps and games available for Windows Phones,” said Brix.

Last week Microsoft announced that it had sold more than 1 million Kinect devices for Xbox 360 in the first 10 days of availability, adding to the 45 million Xbox 360 consoles already sold.

“Windows Phone devices, apps and games are now prominent features of the Xbox dashboard that people see on their televisions when they start Xbox and view tabs such as the Spotlight category,” said Brix.

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