Pizza Hut Moved $1 Million Worth Of Pies Through Xbox 360 In Just Four Months

Pizza Hut proved that peddling pies through a gaming console is extremely big business.

The pizza retailer debuted its Xbox 360 app last year, a program that allowed gamers to purchase food directly through the machine. The app even came with Kinect support, providing folks with the easiest possible way to have pizza delivered to their front doors.

According to Pizza Hut, the gamble paid off. During the first four months of release, the company reportedly sold $1 million worth of pies to Xbox 360 owners. Roughly 11 percent of those folks were ordering through the company’s online service for the first time. Expect all sorts of pizza peddlers to follow suit in the coming months.

During a recent conversation with Polygon, public relations director Doug Terfehr said the company was extremely pleased with the app’s success. However, he stopped short of revealing whether Pizza Hut intends to introduce similar apps on other consoles.

“It’s been a source of unbelievable growth for us. Just the explosion of people who wanted to download it, experiment with it, play with it with Kinect. As soon as we did one, everyone was contacting us to do the next [one],” Terfehr explained during the interview.

Regarding a Pizza Hut app on other machines: “Conversations continue to be ongoing with us. Wherever you are, we want to be.”

Pizza Hut CEO Scott Bergen recently said, “Simplicity and speed are the most common requests from our online ordering customer, and we’ve addressed that with our new site. No company offers the wide variety of digital experiences than we do at Pizza Hut. Not just in the US, but around the world.”

The restaurant celebrated 20 years worth of digital sales this month. The company’s PizzaNet launched back in 1994, marking the first time a company sold physical goods online. The first purchase: a large pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and extra cheese.

“We knew we were on to something 20 years ago with PizzaNet, and we haven’t stopped innovating since the day that first order was placed. We feel 2014 will be a banner year for Pizza Hut on the digital front and we’re excited to kick it off with a big ‘thanks’ to our customers in the form of 50 percent off online orders,” Pizza Hut’s Rohit Kapoo said.

Are you surprised that Pizza Hut sold $1 million worth of pies through its Xbox 360 app during the first four months of release?