windbane on 08 March 2007
windbane said:
Anyway, offering this for free is ridiculous. Microsoft is making $300,000,000 a year on Live with 6 million users.
shams said:
Just a minor point - these 6mill users include GOLD and SILVER users - not just GOLD users. MS have refused to release figures stating which are which (i.e. %'s).
I'll guess that only 20-30% of users are GOLD (if even that). That's still $60-$80m/yr - but you have some significant server running costs to cover.
Point taken. I did not take into account Silver users. However, I imagine it's higher than 20-30%. I am curious about this since your estimate is so low. Just seems to me that if you have a 360 that has so many games that are better if you can play online, that you'd have to take advantage of it by having what is (so far) the best online service. I've been arguing that playing online games for the 360 for a few years negates the cost savings of not getting a PS3 instead, but now you're got me very curious about what the real percentage is.
That does make me happy knowing Microsoft isn't leeching off people as much as I thought they were. Also, I'd think they'd have to take the server costs either way but I'd think that $60-100 mil would cover it, perhaps not. Sony has been dealing with massive server costs since EQ1 launched and they found out their servers couldn't handle it (I was there as I'm sure some of you were as well...it sucked those first few weeks). Battle.net is free, though, heh.
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