Just more than half of Xbox 360 owners who use the video game console's online service pay to play games online, according to an internal Microsoft document reviewed by the Seattle P-I.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 team regularly releases figures showing the popularity of its Xbox Live service, but the company has always declined to break down exactly how many pay to use it.
Microsoft offers two tiers of Xbox Live: A free "silver" subscription that gives users access to downloadable content and a paid "gold" subscription that allows members to play games with others online.
The Excel workbook seen by the P-I dates from February 2008 and includes Microsoft's internal projections only to June 2008. It therefore predates the launch of the New Xbox Experience, which introduced several additional features to the service and may have boosted the percentage of Xbox Live members willing to pay.
Still, the document shows that the percentage of Xbox 360 owners that paid to subscribe to Xbox Live stayed mostly steady for more than a year prior to the announcement of the relaunch in July 2008.
For instance, last February, 56 percent of worldwide Xbox Live members paid an annual, three-month or monthly fee to use the service, down from 60 percent a year earlier.
Unsurprisingly, the percentage was higher in the U.S., where 60 percent of Xbox Live members paid for Xbox Live a year ago, a percentage that also remained relatively flat.
A subscription costs $49.99 for 12 months, with lower charges for three-month or monthly memberships.
It's difficult to put the statistics in perspective.
Neither Nintendo's Wii nor Sony's PlayStation 3 charge for online multigame-playing on their consoles.
Because the number of Xbox 360s in use is steadily growing, the revenue possibilities from subscription fees are large.
In January, Microsoft said it had brought in more than $1 billion in revenue via Xbox Live since the launch of the Xbox 360, although it did not break down how it arrived at the figure.
Not all Xbox 360 owners sign up for paid or free Xbox Live subscriptions. For instance, Microsoft said earlier this month that it had 17 million Xbox Live members. The company has sold more than 28 million Xbox 360s since the Xbox 360's launch.
In an e-mailed statement, a Microsoft spokesman said the company would not comment on the "specifics of the document" although it confirmed that a majority of Xbox subscribers pay for the service.
"We've said before that Xbox LIVE is experiencing incredible growth; in January we had more new LIVE members join than any other month in the history of Xbox LIVE," the spokesman said. "With more than 17 million active members, a majority of whom are paying members, LIVE is a rich social entertainment and gaming experience that is unmatched in the industry."
Source: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/161658.asp
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This is to be expected though. MSFT needs to push higher XBL adoption but with the influx of Arcade owners this puts a damper on that goal.
