Paid-for Xbox Live games and content are enjoying “good growth” in the UK year-on-year, says Microsoft.

In an interview with MCV, Xbox Live’s UK product manager Pav Bhardwaj said this includes Arcade releases, Games on Demand titles and extra add-on content.

“We don’t have any particular numbers as such, but we’ve seen good growth with the arcade titles, and the game add-on business is in growth as well,” he told MCV. 

“We’re really pleased with how it’s going. We’re bringing new titles out constantly. We brought out a number of titles a few weeks ago, and now we have Trials Evolution, Minecraft, Bloodforge and Fable Heroes. It’s a new set of amazing IP and some amazing games.”

Sales of Microsoft’s Games on Demand titles, which become available to download online around six months after their retail debut, are also up year-on-year. These are fully priced at around £49.99 each.

“It really is a successful part of our business, we’re very pleased with the growth of Games on Demand and it continues to do really well,” added Bhardwaj. “People are buying the games at full price and downloading them all too.

“Both sides of Microsoft Studios – retail and the Xbox Live marketplace – have been growing year-on-year.”

Microsoft is currently pushing its Arcade Next promotion which consists of four games: Trials Evolution, Fable Heroes, Bloodforge and Minecraft.

“While we wouldn’t talk about specific sales targets, we’re really excited to launch such a strong line-up of titles as part of the Arcade Next promotion,” said Bhardwaj. “With highly recognised IP in Trials, Fable and Minecraft, and a heart-pounding combat experience in Bloodforge, we have high hopes for these titles.

“Specifically, we’ve got big hopes for Minecraft on the Xbox. It does look incredible, it has split-screen multiplayer and is very very true to the PC experience. And then we’re bringing Kinect functionality as well in the future.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/microsoft-reports-uk-growth-for-xbox-live/094627

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Good to hear that. The recent and upcoming XBLA titles really deserve the attention.

Internet keeps bitching about LIVE, Microsoft keeps reporting growth.

All is well with the world.

They are making fortunes!

Yeah live is big I think it's going to be a big advantage next gen

Damn we need to know some Games on Demand sales to get an idea of how other games are performing.

I really fear that Sony starts to charge for their online service too as they have seen all the money that MS has made from Live.

I do wish they would give out some sales figures for the top GoD. I mean, why not? You know that they know how many sales have come from those games and there's no real reason to keep quiet about it.

Not especially

I was expecting more sales than that.

What is good growth? Of course there is growth, it's the top selling console in the UK isn't it?
Why are digital services never releasing any numbers?

It would be interesting to see if 360 can hold up with PS3 in terms of digital sales.

On one hand we know that XBLA sales are much higher than PSN, on the other hand PS3's have more storage by default and WiFi so you would expect a higher internet ratio and consoles that are able to download full games.
We have seen some quite decent sales for full games on PSN, but there are much more games on Games on Demand than full games on PSN.