Report: Xbox Live to generate $1B annually by 2013

by Alexander Sliwinski 

A research report from In-Stat predicts Xbox Live will generate a billion dollars annually by 2013. According to Edge, Microsoft announced last July that it had reached the billion dollar mark since launching the service in 2006. The $1 billion estimate includes advertising, download revenue and subscriptions.

In-Stat believes that all three current console manufacturers will continue staking out an online strategy to "generate incremental revenue and promote brand loyalty." Considering there's a growing theory that we may not have many more console generations, figuring out a stable online platform is probably best for all parties.

I would have thought it would be more than that by then.

$1B a year is something you'd notice even on Microsofts books.

Go Xbox Live!!

 It depends on how accurate their estimation of the Xbox Live userbase is and what value in $$$ they ascribe per year for it.

Tis true.  I think I read they have around 50% subscription rate.  At 17 million users, that means 8.5 million pay at the least $2.50 a month(I bought a $30 card from buy.com, not sure if they get cheaper than that), $21.25 million each month, $255 million each year.  And that is assuming the user base does not grow, which is guaranteed to happen.  They must not estimate that they make much off of movies, dlc, arcade games, and other such things.  But what do I know, I am not a financial analyst.

microsoft loves those benjamins...1 billion $ bitches!

Xbox Live actually launched in Nov 2002.

I new something seemed off in that launch window... i was quite sure i played ghost recon and mech assault on live  on the original box....

I'm not financial expert either, but $1 bln/year would be a staggering amount of revenue for EDD.  If these are even close to the types of projections M$ is looking at internally it is going to have a serious impact on he next xbox console.