backtop

Print E-mail del.icio.us 54 comment(s) - last by peter7921.. on Oct 5 at 3:32 PM

Microsoft's booth at the Tokyo Game Show is impressive  (Source: DailyTech, Marcus Yam)
Microsoft calls Xbox Live "the largest social network in the living room"

Microsoft has released a collection of statistics on the Xbox 360 and the Live online service. Despite being recently overtaken by the Nintendo Wii in worldwide sales, the Xbox 360 still holds the crown for software sales.
 
According to U.S. NPD data, gamers have bought 24.3 million units of software for the Xbox 360, which is more than the 19.8 million units software for PS3 and Wii combined. Furthermore, the Xbox 360 boasts the largest games attach rate at 6.3 games sold per Xbox 360 owner, according to the company.
 
Microsoft was also proud to call its Xbox Live service “the largest social network in the living room with 2.6 million IM, text and voice messages sent over the service every day.”
 
Xbox Live has just recently broken the seven million user mark, and the service is on track to hit a base of 10 million by June 2008.
 
Microsoft added that Xbox Live Arcade has been a “huge hit” on the Xbox 360, with nearly 70 percent of all Xbox Live users having used the service. According to independent research, the remaining 30 percent of Xbox Live users had never heard of Xbox Live Arcade, despite being connected to the service. For those who are aware of Xbox Live Arcade, only 28 percent have purchased at least one game, according to Frank N. Magid Associates.
 
For U.S.-based users, Xbox Live Marketplace is now the leading provider of on-demand high-definition content in the country, providing more than twice the number of hours as leading cable operators. Xbox Live Marketplace has yet launch in full capacity outside of the U.S.
 
Perhaps most importantly; gamers are using Xbox Live to play online with their friends. Since Xbox Live launched, 3.1 billion games sessions have been hosted on the service – though it is unclear if Microsoft is also including original Xbox games in that number.
 
Xbox Live users are also very popular, as the average Xbox Live Gold subscriber has 23 contacts on their friends list. More than 1.2 billion cross-game invites have been sent since the launch of Xbox 360.
 
Despite the high use of Xbox Live on the Xbox 360, the most popular game played on the service is an original Xbox game. Halo 2 is ahead of Gears of War and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Las Vegas.
 
Halo 3 launches on September 25 with hopes to overtake its predecessor as the most played game on Xbox Live.

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
One thing they're not reporting
By bighairycamel on 9/21/2007 2:20:22 PM , Rating: 1
I missed it, where were the statistics for failure rate?

Out of 7 close friends/relatives that I know own a 360 (including myself), 6 of them have had to send their unit back, some more than once (and the one who didn't has only had theirs for a few months).

They can brag about numbers all they want, but right now the product is shoddy. I'm just glad they upped the warranty, as inconvenient as it still may be.




RE: One thing they're not reporting
By Orbs on 9/21/2007 2:26:09 PM , Rating: 4
Mine's been just fine. I have at least a dozen friends with 360's none of which have had problems. Clearly there were issues or the warranty period wouldn't have been extended, but I don't think the product is 'shoddy'.

These numbers are impressive, and more important than the numbers (and likely the reason for the numbers) is that the Live experience is just so good. It's a shame the GFW Live effort hasn't done well because Live is truly an awesome service.

I've played Halo 2, Gears and R6V on Live and loved 'em all. I'm really looking forward to Halo 3 and Guitar Hero 3 and playing both single and multiplayer over Live on both those titles!


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By PAPutzback on 9/21/2007 2:42:34 PM , Rating: 3
I don't know of one person that had to return theirs. Although I was scared of the noise the DVD drive made on some of the early ones.


By therealnickdanger on 9/21/2007 2:48:13 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Although I was scared of the noise the DVD drive made on some of the early ones.

I was so used to it from Xbox1, I never noticed. LOL! I have bought two 360s and one of them had to go back due to a video output failure (not RROD). OMG, 50% failure rate!


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By timmiser on 9/21/2007 2:46:42 PM , Rating: 2
It is interesting how one group of people come up with some stat where 90% of every Xbox 360 they know has needed service while another group has not had or know of any problems with the Xbox 360's of those they know. It seems to be one extreme vs. another extreme which lends one to surmise that the reality is somewhere inbetween.


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By Oregonian2 on 9/21/2007 2:52:41 PM , Rating: 3
At least some must have been working some of the time to yield 3.1 Billion game sessions on their network.


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By hr824 on 9/21/2007 2:56:31 PM , Rating: 2
While that may be true is was interestring to note when I droped mine off at the ups store and the clerk said "oh another 360" as I was walking up to the counter.

The softwhare side of the 360 is terrific I love the system, x box live, love the games and the movie and tv rentals.

The hardhare side is horid the thing is loud hot and unreliable.


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By Locutus465 on 9/21/2007 3:14:21 PM , Rating: 2
The newer version seems fine, I have an HDMI premium console and it isn't exessivly loud, it also doesn't run very hot.


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By afkrotch on 9/21/07, Rating: 0
By Locutus465 on 9/22/2007 12:39:44 PM , Rating: 3
Because that is the only way to make that judgment? One can't simply touch the console after hours of operation, and feel the temperature of the air and think "Hmm, not a whole bunch worse that my PC, which has much more airflow potential than this sucker"...

I'm sorry about your warentee problems, though to be honest I'm not sure why you would get a Japonese version, does it really offer something you simply can not get out of an american version? Are there better controllers that are not compatible with the american version? At any rate, it sucks for you that you've had some many issues, for the majority of the market though the Warentee is very compelling, 3 years guard agains RROD is enough to make me take the leap. I've had nothing but good experiences so far!

Irony of irony's, my Wii is the console that "died" on me. Didn't really die, but it started throwing out all kinds of visual artifacts in the form of random pixals on screen. Nintendo did a great job of taking care of it though.


By nitin213 on 9/24/2007 5:05:46 AM , Rating: 2
Uh... did I miss something here.....Isn't that very obvious that failure rates are somewhere in between.... or is it that you had to write something...

no harm done though... just a bit funny. Actually for that matter my mail has nothing to say either so I stand in same boat.

Cheers,


By Locutus465 on 9/21/2007 3:11:54 PM , Rating: 2
Mine has been completely fine, no exessive heat or anything. And my 360 is on *A LOT*. Downloading videos, playing HD-DVD's, playing games... The 360 has become a very important part of my entertainment center.


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By Roy2001 on 9/21/2007 3:46:10 PM , Rating: 1
So what? MS stands behind their product and provides 3 years warranty even if you open the case to hack it to play copied game, no need to say pirated games.

I am not a fanboy, of any brand. MS made mistakes with 360 design and they are fixing it. Let's face the fact.


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By jajig on 9/22/2007 12:50:21 AM , Rating: 4
That's crap! If the warranty sticker is broken Microsoft send it straight back saying the warranty is voided.


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By Locutus465 on 9/22/2007 12:40:41 PM , Rating: 2
I'm pretty sure they would offer to fix it for a price...


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By jajig on 9/23/2007 3:34:49 AM , Rating: 2
That's not warranty, thats paying for repairs two different things.


By Locutus465 on 9/24/2007 2:17:01 PM , Rating: 2
It's also not refusing to do the work, it's just refusing to do it for free. You are correct though that opening the console will (justifiably) void the warrentee.


RE: One thing they're not reporting
By SaySomeThingOrDIE on 9/22/07, Rating: 0
By SaySomeThingOrDIE on 9/22/2007 3:53:42 PM , Rating: 1
After examining the CPU on the X360 Elite, it was indeed a 65nm core.