In the world of videogames ten years is a pretty long time. Although Microsoft lack the history of Nintendo and Sony, they’ve certainly made an impact since entering the console market and one of the ways they’ve done this is with Xbox LIVE.
In an open letter to LIVE’s 40+ million users, Xbox LIVE CVP Marc Whitten revealed some rather impressive stats about the service.
“I’m proud to announce that during the week from 6th November to the 13th November, our members spent more time on Xbox LIVE (gaming and watching entertainment) than any other week in the history of our service: a total of 442 million hours,” he said.
“And Halo 4, which broke entertainment industry numbers, resulted in the LIVE community unlocking 43 million achievements in just the first five days of gameplay.”
“This year, we had an average of 9.4 million people a week using multi-player gaming on Xbox LIVE and in the 10 years of LIVE, nearly 14.5 billion Achievements have been unlocked worldwide, accumulating a total combined Gamerscore of more than 270 billion.”
Now of course on occasions like this companies are never slow to pat themselves on the back, but maybe we too should offer a warm hearty slap – sure it’s not perfect but Xbox LIVE has undoubtedly offered most of you who are reading this a fair few great gaming memories.
With all that being said, Xbox LIVE may well be enjoying record numbers today, buy with competition like Steam and PSN what can Microsoft do to ensure the service continues to thrive?
Xbox LIVE Plus, anyone?
wonkey-willy
excellent idea reward everyone with a kinect game fekin twats..
thanks Microsoft ive been with you from the off and thats how you reward me?
tonycawley
What kind of reward did you expect? This is an overly shitty remark IMO, did you want a gold watch?
wonkey-willy
no tony a kinect sensor would have been a bit more handy than a gold watch!
my point being why reward us with a kinect game why not an option of a game from the collection that wrekateer came from..
hazelam
i want a gold watch. ^_^
cam the man
Doesn’t seem like it’s 10 years since the first Xbox.
Even though I haven’t used my 360 for over 3 years I got an email with the message, 50% off some LIVE Arcade games and Wreckateer free for 48 hours. It would probably take me longer than that to find all the cables etc. for my 360.
bunimomike
They still have the superior service for online games but you’re paying for it. God knows we’ll be on Skype yet again when GTA V comes out on the PS3. Ooo, this assumes we can even see invites. :-(
hazelam
of course they turn the free gift into a tool for selling more Kinects.
still, free is free.
i wonder if they’re feeling any pressure to actually include some content in the gold sub, when all they really offer at the moment is access to services others provide for free that have their own subs on top.
but then while people are still paying for it i guess nothing will change.
Forrest_01
Sounds like the achievements for Halo 4 are a bit on the easy side then! :p
hazelam
or there are obsessive players who haven’t stopped playing since they bought it. O_O