Thanksgiving has come and gone in Americaland, but Microsoft can carry on giving thanks to the 960,000 people who bought Xbox 360s last week, making it the biggest sales week ever in the console’s seven-year history.

The holiday week, including so-called Black Friday, is traditionally a big pre-Christmas shopping event for Yankeedoodles, with most stores offering special deals on pretty much everything.

According to Microsoft, more than 800,000 of those Xbox sales happened in a single 24-hour period, presumably the Friday. The company also recorded over 750,000 Kinect sales, including both standalone and bundled versions.

Back in June, it was reported that 13.7 million Xboxes had already been sold this year, up from 10.3 million in 2010.

With the incoming dashboard update, due to go live on 6 December, Microsoft will be adding a huge list of live and on-demand TV channels, including major American networks like Bravo, Comcast, HBO, and Syfy, making the Xbox as much a set-top box replacement as a gaming console.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, we’re still waiting on most of the Xbox LIVE Marketplace content.