56% of Xbox Live members are Gold

Tuesday 24-Feb-2009 10:30 AM Over half of 360's online subscribers pay to play

www.cvg.co.uk

Over half of the Xbox 360's online userbase pays a Gold subscription to play online, claim statistics from the Seattle PI.

Citing an internal Microsoft document dating between February and June 2008, the report claims that 56 percent of worldwide Xbox Live members paid a Gold subscription at the beginning of last year.

The figure is apparently down from 60% at the same time the year before, which isn't bad if you expect the number of people with Xbox 360s has undoubtedly gone up.

While the figures don't reach into 2009 - or even go past the launch of the New Xbox Experience - the percentage of paying Xbox Live members apparently stayed steady up until its announcement in June 2008.

Expectedly, the highest percentage of Gold subscribers is in the US, where the number stays flat at around 60%.

Speaking in an e-mail statement, Microsoft said: "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.

"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."

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so at least we got the number now.

good spin though just like sonys 17million psn accounts spin.

its funny because if you say majority that could even be 51%

Another thread about this. This stuff is old news.

Like goldmember?

I still think it's crap that you have to have seperate gold membership accounts for each profile on the same console. In my opinion, that's one of the greedy unfriendly consumer business moves I've ever seen. What else would I expect from Microsoft? The sad thing is that it seems a lot of people are ok with this. I talked with a friend after my experience and he thought I was wrong and blowing it out of proportion. He had no problem with the fact they charge for each profile on a system if multiple people want to play online under their own name despite the fact the other two consoles are free.

I've enjoyed my Xbox in the short time I've had it but that has upset me though. In the next generation, I'll stick with Nintendo or also get the Sony system despite how much I don't care for them. That is how much I don't care for paying for online gaming. If I get a system and have it for a few years, that will cost me several hundred dollars more to pay online. To be honest, I already sort of regret buying the 360 a few months ago and wish I had just waited and bought the PS3 when the specials that we currently see are taking place.

Next gen, I'll know better. Goodbye Microsoft, you lost me at "hello" due to your business style and poor....no no, make that horrible customer service.

8500000*60
=
$510 000 000




Wow.

Looks like gamers are supplying the moneyhats.

Not trying to be an ass here, but have you ever dealt with Sony or Nintendo's customer service?  I have, and I can tell you they are probably as bad if not worse than M$.  I had an issue with my original PS2's dvd drive and those guys were complete ass's.  It almost stopped me from buying the PS3 I have now.  I also had an issue once with a nintendo GC and they were no fun either, atleast they didn't insult me.

Poor customer service isn't limited to one single company, to be honest it happens a lot more than it should.  The sad thing is it will continue to happen more than ever with how everything is automated or outsourced to India.

Xbox Live is $60 for you?  I thought we were getting screwed by paying $40.

So out of the "17 million active members" only 56% of them actually play online? Really does put the PSN vs XBL user accounts debate into perspective, since all PSN users can play online

They all "can" play online, but not all of them do.  And there are so many people with mutliple accounts to be used for downloading things from different regions of the world or to take advantage of games like Call of Duty.  I wouldn't be surprised to find that the PSN only has 10-11 million actual active and unique accounts.

Anyways... this thread was already posted so lock it up.