Microsoft has revealed that 17 billion hours have now been spent by users on Xbox Live, representing nearly three hours for each person on Earth.

Xbox Live social media lead Trixie360 revealed the usage statistics on Twitter, including that Xbox Live Marketplace has racked up 1.2 billion downloads since its launch in 2002.

"In seven years, Xbox Live members have spent more than 17 billion hours on Xbox Live. That's more than two hours for every person on the planet!" she wrote.

"There have been more than 1.2 billion downloads of gaming and entertainment content from Xbox Live Marketplace. About 100 per second!"

According to gaming blog G4, 17 billion hours represents almost two million years or 850 hours for each of the current 20 million Xbox Live subscriber

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a198250/xbox-live-usage-tops-17bn-hours.html

OMG m$ has Apologised and might change the system to show real cast values to

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/01/microsoft-apologises-for-points-system-may-move-to-real-money/

i dont have any problems with the points themselves...and point cards come in more usable amounts than from off live. i do however have a problem with the cost of the my points compared to the cost of the US points. ive never felt them to be misleading in any way though.

i dont think they are misleading but i think alot of people find it annoying when they have to buy more points than they need, this is the main problem

there is lots of content available on live and you can buy points cards for $20 so i really dont see how its any size of a problem.  there are likely other things would currently be of interest or things to come that will be of interest, so if you leave some points sitting around is it really that much of a bother?  not like its hundreds of dollars sitting there, its less that 20.

I LOVE the point system. You can find them cheap from time to time.

Normally 800points = 10€. I payed 7€. Shadow Complex deal of the week was 7€. It would have been 10€ without the pointsystem and 15€ without deal of the week.

I would much rather them go to dollars instead of points.

Yeah i want dollars instead of points.

No! They need to keep the point system. Or else this might happen D:

I actually like the points system, Something that has surprised me is that we haven't really seen any types of pre-order deals where you get 800 free points for a preorder or 1200 MS points for buying the Collectors edition of a game. A valuable free incentive that would cost them virtually nothing.
My biggest problem with all the DLC is that almost everything is always priced at about double what it is really worth unless you catch something that you want on the 50 % off special of the week. (even Nintendo's VC is priced at about double what I am willing to pay)

Dont mind the point system, as long as they make the point purchase a bit more buyer friendly. Having odd amounts of points left over always manages to piss me off when it happens.