So even though this current generation of consoles is dieing Xbox Live certainly isn't.  In fact in their Earnings Report today it was confirmed that Live memberships were up by 18% and added 6 million new members in a year.

Now Ive seen many on this and other forums bashing Live and saying it has nothing on Playstation Plus but subscriptions and userbase certainly say otherwise.

So whats your opinion? Is the hate Live gets from some people unjustified?

I'd be happy to get XBL Gold for free and I'd be happy to gas my car for free. I could ride my bike for free if I really didn't want to pay for gas. Sometimes the price of entry is just that, the price you pay to get what you want. Maybe someday everything we all want will be free, but I'm not going to hold me breath. Halo keeps me coming back for more.

Compare those numbers to PSN, not PS+.

That does tell us though that there are 39 million Live profiles.

The difference between XBL and other services is not a car to a bike.

I thought it was in a year

it didnt add it in the last quarter, it added them in the fiscal year. MS announced that xbox live users topped 40 million by January 2012. yes 2012. so either nobody singed up for xbox live for the last 11 months of 2012 and suddenly 6 million singed up for it in the last 3 months. or ... OR the 6 million singed up for it in the last 12 months. which one seems more reasonable to you?

source for the xbox live numbers : http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-brief/60687-xbox-live-users-topple-40-million

My mistake and OP updated

I was reading the earnings thread amd several people said 6 million was for the quarter.

i dont know the exact numbers. but i remember last year they were at the 40M mark so i searched this and i found it right away. 

18% 40m = 7.2m

if people wanna pay to play online let them pay to play online i always say. still a ripoff doe