So even before the NXE launched there were like 56-60% of the users paying for Xbox Live. So my guess is that the current situation is at least like 65%.
Let's caclulate a little bit:
There are more than 17 million Xbox Live users. Let's be very careful and assume that the launch of the NXE didn't have any influence on the percentaged share of paying users.
- So 17 million * 60% = 10.2 million paying users.
- Let's say they have the cheapest subscription. That would be the 12 months one for $50
- MS generates 510 million USD / year just with the fees for Xbox Live. That is quite a number.
- Remember: This is a very careful estimation! The number of paying users is probably around 11 million + not all of them are using the cheapest subscription + some of them are paying in GBP or Euro. (Xbox Live is like 50€ / year here!) This would lead to higher revenue in USD.
So let's talk about all the other stuff on Xbox Live.
According to VGC, the sales for Xbox Live Arcade generate an average revenue of 2 million USD / week. This number might be not that accurate, because it is very hard to track those sales, but it is the only data we have. 2 million USD / week is again a very carful estimation. Probably a little bit more. And again we just calculate with USD, not GBP or Euro.
- 52 weeks * 2 million = 104 million USD / year just for Xbox Live Arcade.
The Xbox Originals might generate a small revenue as well. They sure do, but we do not have any data. Just Peter Molyneux said once that the original Fable did great on Xbox Live. That is all.
Video on Demand - This is by far the biggest moneymaker on Xbox Live. 2/3 of all paid downloads are VoD. That is what (what was his name? Don Mattrick? Patrick? whatever^^) said on the E3 6 months ago. We don't know if he meant actual numbers or revenue. Anyhow, this shows that VoD on the Xbox360 is paying off.
DLC will see a rapidly growth this year. Some of the biggest games last year will get the DLC this year. Games like Fallout 3 will get 3 DLC (2 still to go), Fable II already received a DLC and of course there are the two DLCs for GTA IV. Besides that there will be DLC for smaller games like Tomb Raider or Skate2. The number of available DLC for the music games Lips / Rockband / Guitar hero are just crazy.
I don't know about the other stuff like themes or music-videos. I actually can't see them selling at all. But maybe that is just me. So they might generate some revenue but compared to the other stuff available on Xbox Live, this will have a very small percentaged share of the total revenue.
So I claim: MS generates 1 billion USD revenue / year just with Xbox Live and the available content. That is crazy.
Imagine not having GamePass on your console...
