Electronictheatre

Following the rush of figures revealed by Microsoft’s Chief Executive Office, Steve Ballmer, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week, more details on the success of the Xbox LIVE service have come to light today. As part of an update for advertisers interested in working with Microsoft, Mark Kroese, General Manager of the  Advertising Business Group in the Entertainment & Devices Division, has stated that, “Cumulatively, Xbox LIVE users are logging over 1 billion hours a month on the service.”Last week it was revealed that the Xbox LIVE online gaming and social network now has more than thirty million registered subscribers. A considerable feat, especially considering that just eighteen months  ago, according to Krose, the Xbox LIVE membership stood at just twenty million. That’s a fifty per cent increase in from mid-2009 to early 2011.

Of course, there are many reasons that such an increase could have occurred, from the continuingly lowering price of the Xbox 360 console to the more widespread adoption of broadband internet connections. Additionally, the launch of new features on Xbox LIVE and the release of Kinect could well have attributed to the increase, not least with the Video Kinect system allowing easy-to-use video conferencing from the couch.Whether or not Microsoft will be able to replicate this success in the next twelve months remains to be seen, as currently very little is known about their plans for the Xbox 360 system and Xbox LIVE network beyond early 2011. Electronic Theatre will of course keep you updated with all the latest details on both the Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE.

http://www.electronictheatre.co.uk/index.php/xbox360/xbxo360-news/6937-xbox-live-users-log-over-1-billion-hours-a-month

30 million gold member? thats alot of cash

I believe they said 30 million active accounts. Not Gold members.

The average gamer doesn't play games online and this is why Xbox 360 sales are strong even though MS charges. Based on this number, many don't even connect their console to the internet.

30 million subscribers

subscribers = gold member ?

If that's the case, probably around £100M a month guaranteed, probably nearly as much as Blizzard gets from the WoW subscriptions, if you take the region pricing into account, whereas I think XBL pricing is universal?

one could just wish with genetic enginering i'd live that long its such a shame it came late and people have alot of ethical issues with it that slows down progress significantly. I imagine if i was born 2030 that would be a perfect time by the age of 20 i think that would be 2050 we'd have reality gaming and probably genetic engineering to increase life span to maybe 150-200 years but i would have missed the ps1, ps2, xbox, xbox 360, ps3 and countless others. Also would have missed fresh milk, cheap water, fresh fruits. I see 2050 being hard as more people higher cost of food and water more genetically modified for faster results. Also one important thing is i would have missed the end of the mayan calendar, (the end of the world as some call it). 

Thought it was 50/50 (between Gold an Silver)..

No, they are counting silver members as well.

MS doesen't even say how many Gold subscribers there are.

If they have 10 million active Gold accounts I'd be really impressed. Black Ops had over 2 million on at once and that's all we can really run with.