Xbox Live: six million users

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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=23295

...

Last year at E3, Microsoft pledged that it would double the subscriber base of Xbox Live from three million users to six million by the end of June 2007 - a milestone it has now reached four months ahead of schedule.

To mark hitting six million users on the service, Microsoft has released an update on key statistics related to Xbox Live - revealing that as well as the 2.3 biillion hours spent playing games on the service since its launch in 2002, Live is also coming into its own as a communication system, with over 2,000,000 voice and text messages sent between users every day.

...

Also, 300–million Achievements are unlocked.
 
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What doers thsi really mean?

That there are 6 something million people with live accounts or that 6 million people are now paying subscribers?

One is significantly more impressive than the other.

Peace.
 
What doers thsi really mean?

That there are 6 something million people with live accounts or that 6 million people are now paying subscribers?

One is significantly more impressive than the other.

Peace.

last time when they said 5m or 5.5m at CES2007 they said it was subscribers. not sure whether that includes anyone who has subscribed for free month live.
 
Number of subscriber is not a very good measure. It raises questions on how many "One Month Trial ones" who never continued after trial, etc, etc. Even the article mentions that Microsoft is silent about such statistics
the company remains silent on the question of how many of its six million Xbox Live users are paying a Gold subscription, and how many are using a free Silver account

but activity statistics like the "2.3 billion hours spent playing games on the service since its launch in 2002" is much better indicator how the community is doing. And thats a lot of hours of online play ;)
 
Good to hear ! If they don't say it explicitly (paid subscribers), people will assume it includes free ones.
 
6 million xbox silver live or 5 million? those numbers dont tell that much actually
 
Microsoft's top 5 XBox Live Arcade games:

1. Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting
2. Bankshot Billiards 2
3. Marble Blast Ultra
4. UNO
5. DOOM

For clarification: the 6 million is user with Silver or Gold who accessed the network.
 
Number of subscriber is not a very good measure. It raises questions on how many "One Month Trial ones" who never continued after trial, etc, etc.
Yes.This was something that came up with XB Live and Halo IIRC. There were free trials which resulted in user accounts, but these accounts didn't care to continue their online. It's actually an important statistic to know, to guage penetration of online services. This is a Big Thing these days, and XB's reputation is pretty much founded on it's online services, yet interest in online, especially online gaming, has never been confidently proven. 60% XB360 online gaming would be impressive and show people (or at least, early XB360 purchasers) do want online services. Whereas previous figures from last-gen have pegged online nearer 10%, which makes it very much a niche thing.
 
Number of subscriber is not a very good measure. It raises questions on how many "One Month Trial ones" who never continued after trial, etc, etc. Even the article mentions that Microsoft is silent about such statistics

Irrelevant, as the number refers to both Silver and Gold accounts. If you've followed MS PR, you know that this is the number they always refer to, total subscribers, including Silver.

You can gather than 70% are currently active as they download MP content, presumably part of the remaining 30% game online, but do not DL markep platce content, (probably quite a small segment Core users and others, <10% I would guess).

So, you're probably looking in the range 70-80% of this 6million are active, returning members. 5million give or take a few hundred thousand seems a very safe bet to me.
 
Yes.This was something that came up with XB Live and Halo IIRC. There were free trials which resulted in user accounts, but these accounts didn't care to continue their online. It's actually an important statistic to know, to guage penetration of online services. This is a Big Thing these days, and XB's reputation is pretty much founded on it's online services, yet interest in online, especially online gaming, has never been confidently proven. 60% XB360 online gaming would be impressive and show people (or at least, early XB360 purchasers) do want online services. Whereas previous figures from last-gen have pegged online nearer 10%, which makes it very much a niche thing.

yes, no matter how the numbers break down, they are impressive that people use the service. Along with voice messaging, chat, downloadable movies, arcade games, TV shows, demos and the like (all available on Silver membership), it bodes well (much better than many had predicted two years ago) for both the future of PS3 and X360 online strategies.

It really matters not, how many people pay for online gaming as that is not the purpose of this release..
 
yes, no matter how the numbers break down, they are impressive that people use the service. Along with voice messaging, chat, downloadable movies and arcade and TV shows and demos and the like, it bodes well (much better than many had predicted two years ago) for both the future of PS3 and X360 online strategies.

I think it also shows that the appeal over online connectivity is somewhat over rated. We're talking about 40% of the early adopters crowd, haven't even bothered to log in. Imo, casual consumers will be even less likely to login, increasing that percentage.

To me, that shows that there is still a massive audience for a cheap, HDD-less, core console.
 
To me, that shows that there is still a massive audience for a cheap, HDD-less, core console.

True, there is STILL a huge market for an unconnected Core. I am (as you know ;)) on the 2008-2010 $179 Core rules the World bandwagon. ;)

It's just that this release shows that there are quite a bit of people (just like any cutting edge technology) that are ready for the full experience. Far more people than given credit before the 360 released with such a fully featured online service.
 
Irrelevant, as the number refers to both Silver and Gold accounts. If you've followed MS PR, you know that this is the number they always refer to, total subscribers, including Silver.

I was trying to highlight that just the number itself is not a good indicator because of active vs inactive members.
You can gather than 70% are currently active as they download MP content, presumably part of the remaining 30% game online, but do not DL markep platce content, (probably quite a small segment Core users and others, <10% I would guess).

So, you're probably looking in the range 70-80% of this 6million are active, returning members. 5million give or take a few hundred thousand seems a very safe bet to me.

ahha more numbers and statistics ;)
How about in a family more than one person has a/c but for practical purpose only one is used. That would artificially inflate the number wont it ? How about dummy a/c when people register for multiple region just to access (free) content of other regions ?

Your 70-80% maybe true , but we have no way of knowing it. And again usage statistic like "300–million Achievements are unlocked" is more meaningful, but has a less PR impact than number of subscribers.
 
I was trying to highlight that just the number itself is not a good indicator because of active vs inactive members.


ahha more numbers and statistics ;)
How about in a family more than one person has a/c but for practical purpose only one is used. That would artificially inflate the number wont it ? How about dummy a/c when people register for multiple region just to access (free) content of other regions ?

Your 70-80% maybe true , but we have no way of knowing it. And again usage statistic like "300–million Achievements are unlocked" is more meaningful, but has a less PR impact than number of subscribers.

I'm pointing out we 'know' that 70% at least are active. So the number is indeed meaningful.

As for not knowing whether 70-80% is correct, that's true, but we definately do know that it's more than 70% and less than 100%.
 
I'm pointing out we 'know' that 70% at least are active. So the number is indeed meaningful.
that 70% is an estimate of how many user a/c have downloaded from Xbox Live arcade. It is not a figure for active subscribers. Because for those 70% are they still active ? is that 70% during life of Live Service ? If an a/c downloads one arcade content and is inactive now , thats counted isn't it ?

as from the exact quote
Microsoft estimates that almost 70 per cent of users who have connected their console to the network have downloaded from Xbox Live Arcade

that 70% is not a known amount just an estimate like yours, unless you are the one who came up with that estimates for Microsoft in first place ;) . But how could they possibly not know for sure ? why estimates ?

Anyway there is no question about 6 million subscribers and again 70+% is good estimate but its still an estimate and all we know for sure is that Microsoft wont give the exact figure of its members who have Gold Subscription.
 
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