Differences in active user definition too:

Steam: User has purchased at least 1 game (so anyone who only plays the many F2P titles is already out) and has logged in within the last 30 days.

Live: User has logged in within the last 8 months.

54M that login once every 30 days vs 46M that login once every 8 months.

Wow impressive attach rate for Kinect and XBLG still printing money.

lol @ people harping on what a company defines as active. As if every single platform company in existence does not also do things with numbers to make them more impressive. Just out of curiosity, what are the official "active user" guidelines that Sony and Nintendo use for their active user PR?

apologies, I kinda meant compared to ps+, but that wouldn't have answered kowen's question either.

Sony and Nintendo active users are probably near 100% for those that care about having internet on their home consoles considering it is free to play online, stream video services, etc. 

They don't and won't unless it makes them look good. All 3 of them announce these numbers that sound quite nice (whether active or total) but for actual analysis they're near worthless. Be nice if the industry could set a standard but it would have to be setup externally as none of the 3 are going to want to destroy their positive spin.

Personally I think they should all do it in a similar way Valve announce active users on Steam. Login within the last 30 days with at least 1 download, purchase or game played on said account. Not going to happen, but be nice if all companies followed the same convention.

Well about the 8 months figure you could take the 4 months subscription card (I have yet to see any 3m card anywhere in sweden worth buying, they Always include the 3 + 1 at the card), the 1 month usual card and finally the 12 months add all these up and you get 17 months divide that by two and you get 8.5months which is pretty Close to 8 months.

This is a longshot yes but at least it's better than saying - we have had 200 million accounts created since 2005

Oh dear.

So people logging in to XBL in the past 8 months means active for MS. And no matter if they have gold or silver.

Sony only releases a number of accounts. And that includes everything. PSP, PS3, PS Vita, Playstation forums and probably even old PS2 accounts.

I never saw Nintendo release any numbers at all. But I will bet my left arm that Nintendos online business is by far the smallest one. The casual approach with the Wii, the lackluster sales for the more hardcore Wii U (at least marketed as such), the shitty online service as a whole (friend codes? really?), basically just old Nintendo games to buy on demand compared to PSN / XBLA, no big apps, etc.

It wouldn't be any more near 100% of those that care than MS's lol. Because if free online were that big a deal to someone, why would they buy a 360 in the first place? Plus their is no difference in the active user list to MS based on Gold/Silver. So the pay to play angle is irrelevant.