Microsoft: Marketplace has had over 50 million downloads
by Joystiq Staff 
{ Aug 31st 2006 at 4:25PM }
According to Microsoft, the Xbox Live Marketplace just passed the 50 million downloads marker which is double the 25 million point reached just three months ago. Clearly, Xbox Live is where the 360 is putting its faith in success, but this can't be anything but great and surprising news for the console and its fans.The PR squad at Xbox also released these telling figures:
- Texas Hold 'em set a one day record as the fastest download item ever on the Marketplace. There were over 100 downloads a minute in the first 24-hours of release.
- Over 2 billion hours spent on Xbox Live by gamers across the globe since the launch of the Xbox Live online gaming network in November 2002
- More than 60 percent of Xbox 360 owners are connected to Xbox Live
- 65 percent of all connected consoles already downloading and playing Xbox Live Arcade titles
- Over 8 million downloads of Xbox Live Arcade games following the launch of Xbox 360
- Over 2 billion Microsoft Points sold to date
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
m4ndo @ Aug 31st 2006 4:32PM
Sony has their work cut out for them.
get over it @ Aug 31st 2006 4:32PM
Texas Hold 'em set a one day record as the fastest download item ever on the Marketplace. There were over 100 downloads a minute in the first 24-hours of release.
that's pretty amazing... but i wonder what it would be like if they had charged for it.
i downloaded it because it was free for the first 48hrs and i've played it once since then.
tactics @ Aug 31st 2006 4:34PM
i don't think there's a question about whose online service is the market leader... (heh) but can it remain that way?
impressive numbers.
-"superfan" tactics.
gameclu @ Aug 31st 2006 4:36PM
I downloaded Texas Holdem because it was free. Yet to play it.
Imadogg @ Aug 31st 2006 4:41PM
Sweet, I'm a part of all of those stats. So proud.
And I play Hold 'Em all the time.
Go XBL, yay!
BMWM3P @ Aug 31st 2006 4:47PM
Anyone can make records by releasing buggy games that need constant patches to be downloaded so you can play. And also see how many downloads of poker there were after the 48hrs.
get over it @ Aug 31st 2006 4:44PM
"Over 2 billion Microsoft Points sold to date"
did the math... that's over $25 million
who knows, maybe this "Live" thing will be profitable for microsoft one of these days.
JJ @ Aug 31st 2006 4:44PM
Ditto i DL Texas hold em as well cuz it was free... yet i have no interest in the game whatsoever and i've only ever bought 3600 MP but then i dont buy much, man i can see MS raising the price on those babies soon though if they've sold 2 billion of em... which equates to what? a couple million bucks?
and over 2 billion hours i can see, especially considering every time i turn on my system it logs me in automatically and i really cant play under my name unless i'm logged in... unless of course i unplug the ethernet cord.. There may be a way to turn that off but i've never bothered looking for it.
I am surprised that only 65% of all the connected consoles are DLing XBLA games... i would thnk that number would be about 40% higher. I mean the demos are free anyway so if you're connected... why not right?
and as for the 60% connected i would expect that as well.Most people i know who can afford a 360... can afford a high speed internet solution and a somewhat nice TV too.
Still not bad numbers
BPM? @ Aug 31st 2006 4:47PM
Let's face it: free stuff attracts people easily.
It's why Texas Hold 'Em was such a hit, and why Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection has already reached over 2 million users.
I'm not knocking either, by the way. I love WFC (but I don't care much for poker, but I probably still would've downloaded it for free if I had a 360).
Jake @ Aug 31st 2006 4:48PM
"how soon could either of them conceivably catch up to the numbers and potential of Xbox Live?"
If Sony's service is free like they've claimed, then I'd say they will catch up to these numbers within the first week of the PNP going live (no pun intended). If you're just counting percentages at least...
Brandon Konran @ Aug 31st 2006 4:51PM
144,000 downloads in one day? Doesnt seem like alot to me considering they were giving the game away for free -and- there is 'supposidly'over 2 million active subscribers to the live online service.
Balla360 @ Aug 31st 2006 5:05PM
I hope that the last sentence is fanboy baiting, because there are several possible (and likely) scenarios under which the PS3 or the Wii could pull ahead of XBL within a year's time.
That Fuzzy Bastard @ Aug 31st 2006 5:33PM
"Evil" pictures aside, Live is going very well for MS, and they deserve the success. It's hard to argue that Live was from pretty much the beginning, a uniquely good gaming service, and a major system seller for the Xbox and its franchises (I first got Live to play Halo 2, and I don't think I'm the only one).
It's fun to bash MS and their clumsy elbowing a place at the console table, but Live is so far the best integration of the internet and gaming yet, as well as the most ambitious. It deserves to be the standard against which all future attempts will be measured.
otakucode @ Aug 31st 2006 5:09PM
Easily. Viral content. A truly open and free-to-develop-for service where anyone can put up anything at all and the community can rate content. Generous revenue sharing with developers thrown into the mix and you'd have stunningly popular games unlike anything offered commercially at extremely low prices. If you were selling the platform for a profit, you'd make a bundle.
Stanford Dale Woodson @ Aug 31st 2006 5:49PM
"A truly open and free-to-develop-for service where anyone can put up anything at all and the community can rate content."
Yep, it's called Microsoft XNA Game Studio. You can freely create Windows games with it, and in a few months there's going to be XBLA integration with it...
And man, I hope Nintendo realeases some kind of game creation tool for the Wii, you could have some absurdly ridiculous games on it...
Jeff @ Aug 31st 2006 5:45PM
"did the math... that's over $25 million
who knows, maybe this "Live" thing will be profitable for microsoft one of these days."
$2 billion invested in XBL, $25 million made back. You do the math on whether that's a profit or not.
Honestly, these are some big numbers MS is throwing out there. But what's behind them? "2 billion" is a big number when you're talking things like dollars, or cheeseburgers, or miles. But when you're talking the equivalent of 1.25 cents, it's really not as big as it sounds.
And where is their announcement of the number of actual XBL subscribers? I see "60 percent of 360 users connect to Xbox Live", but what the hell does that mean? To me, that says 40% of Xbox 360 owners have never even signed in to their free silver account. There's no breakdown of the other 60 percent, in terms of gold vs. silver subscribers.
"Over 8 million downloads of Xbox Live Arcade games following the launch of Xbox 360"
Ok, let's assume MS has 2 million or so XBL subscribers. That means 4 games per subscriber. (If you want to include the 60 percent of total XBL users, including silver users, then the number is even lower... probably more like 2 games per XBL user.) That includes the free stuff. Again, not very big when you look at it that way.
This is a press release obviously cooked up to throw out the biggest numbers they could truthfully put out there, but look at what they actually mean and it doesn't seem all that impressive to me.
vc @ Aug 31st 2006 5:55PM
Jeff, you're not being fair with your comments.
You make it sound like MS has ONLY made $25 million on XBL by comparing an investment of $2 billion to the money made on MS Points alone.
You fail to consider:
(a) revenues from XBL subscriptions
(b) revenues from XBLA game downloads
(c) revenues froM XBL Marketplace downloads (Oblivion content)
(d) revenues from higher attach rates for peripherals that have no use without XBL (such as vision and the wireless adapter)
(e) revenues from advertisers (such as Verizon) who have sponsored presences on XBL
(d) revenues from subscriptions for games that have additional subscription fees
Don't you think you need to include these different sources of revenues in order to make a fair comment?
Figment @ Aug 31st 2006 6:10PM
I have no idea how sony's will do, but there is one very large factor that, if anything, gives more potential to nintendo over microsoft: established content. While geometry wars and a few other games being released on live are certainly high-quality, and there are more on the way, the potential of nintendo selling every nes, snes, gameboy, GENESIS, and n64 game (plus others), gives them a ton of selling power with NO marketing necessary. The one thing that could take this advantage away, however, is the friend code setup, which is far more unwieldly and awkward compared to live's setup. In less than a day of star fox command on wfc, I have already had over half of my matches end due to someone dropping out so as not to get a bad record. And that makes me mad, especially when I actually had the rare chance to be winning.
steve @ Aug 31st 2006 6:01PM
I believe if they are making profit off of xbl, it is with gold subscribers. You don't pay for your subscription with points. It is charged directly to your credit card. If even a third of those people are paying the $4 a month to use gold, microsoft is probabley making a good chunk of change. Plus the $25mil in ms points.
GSI @ Aug 31st 2006 6:03PM
Well of course Texas Hold'em is going to push a lot of downloads. If you tell people get this ASAP or you are going to have to pay for it, they are going to get it before it isn't free anymore.
Mark B. @ Aug 31st 2006 6:10PM
Just like the old saying goes, a fool and his money will soon be parted.
Also, having to download patches to fix all the buggy games on the 360 really SUCKS!!
Kiggle @ Aug 31st 2006 6:12PM
Texas Holdem aside Microsoft's coup of this generation is progressing extremely well, almost better than one would have imagined they could reasonably expect.
Sony has their work cut out for them indeed. In a big way.
I was in a game store the other day for the first time in a while, and it's amazing, everyone that came in or out was coming or going with 360 games, all the 'casual' crowd (like the loud rowdy black guys bugging out over madden) were talking all about saints row and gears of war, it was weird not seeing them talk about PS2 releases I'll be honest.
Crazy how things change.
Psaakyrn @ Aug 31st 2006 6:48PM
Irregardless, until Sony actually comes out with concrete info and demos, I can't factor Sony into any comparisons. Now for XBL vs NC24..
Cost of use: Advantage NC24
Marketability: Advantage XBL (marketability meaning potential 3rd-party companies using it to advertise/sell products)
Pre-Existing Content: Advantage NC24 (however XBL has the potential to get all the old PC games...)
Potential Content: XBL (considering that it's easier to port from PC development stations, and they've released the development kit to the public)
Game Availability: Advantage XBL (avability meaning number of games with multiplayer content. Expect some competition in this once Wii games starts rolling in)
Profit Potential: ?? (cost of NC24 is unknown, XBL's currently negative as far as we know. If it was positive, MS will make an announcement out of it)
Ease of use: Advantage XBL (until we get more details from the other services)
SnapperDragon @ Aug 31st 2006 8:06PM
Live sux.
I can't even browse the stupid net with the 360.
LAME.
SnapperDragon @ Aug 31st 2006 8:10PM
To # 23 on the word irregardless:
SYLLABICATION: ir·re·gard·less
PRONUNCIATION: r-gärdls
ADVERB: Nonstandard Regardless.
ETYMOLOGY: Probably blend of irrespective and regardless.
USAGE NOTE: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir– prefix and –less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
tacoman @ Aug 31st 2006 8:53PM
With Nintendo's Virtual Console, they could conceivably match or overtake Live fairly quickly (about a year from launch), especially as more companies support it. 20 years of gaming history is going to be a huge draw. Tecmo Bowl is a more exciting draw than Geometry Wars.
Sean Muth @ Aug 31st 2006 10:48PM
"6. "Over 2 billion Microsoft Points sold to date"
did the math... that's over $25 million
who knows, maybe this "Live" thing will be profitable for microsoft one of these days."
it's actually $24,980,000.00 if you use 1000GP=$12.49
you last sentence makes no sense at all.
this is only the profits from XBLM, and doesn't include XBL Gold subscriptions. and if 60% use it at either $8/month or $60/year, that's also a lot of cash.
this is hugely profitable.
sony and nin will simply not be able to catch ms on this one.
GSI @ Sep 1st 2006 12:54AM
-->"sony and nin will simply not be able to catch ms on this one."
Care to prove that? Oh wait...you can't. God I hate statements like that...
get over it @ Sep 1st 2006 12:49AM
here you go sean, let me help you out, i didn't realize i was required to show my work.
the math based on the 1600 point card which is what i was using:
1600 points = $20
2,000,000,000 / 1,600 = 1,250,000 cards x $20 = $25,000,000
that last comment was sarcasm for those of you who couldn't spot it.
and snapperdragon,
regardless of whether or not Psaakyrn used a word that is condemned by english professors really doesn't matter for two reasons
1. it's a recognized word in the dictionary and is actually spelled correctly as opposed to your spelling of "sucks" in your other post
2. according to the definition you provided "...it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing..." if that's not a pretty good description of joystiq posts i don't know what is.
if you're going to be a stickler for proper english usage by others, you should probably try to use it as well, or better yet, don't wory about it on the "net".
Embassy @ Sep 1st 2006 1:46AM
kiggle...
thanks for the racial generalization...'preciate it.
guess i should go load up my copy of madden and get all rowdy now...
JM Scion @ Sep 1st 2006 8:45AM
Sheesh, why can't people just get whatever game consoles they want and be happy about it. Sounds like some of you won't be satisfied until the XBox 360 is taken off shelves, and that could have a deeper wound to the industry than when Sega stopped production of the excellent Dreamcast.
KR @ Sep 1st 2006 8:50AM
Jeez, this is spiraling into a nightmare. We've got guys screaming about an as-yet undetailed service wasting the established leader with minimal effort, guys with ELEVEN stars making asinine comments about MS' XBL profatibility (taking into account only ONE of the many sources or revenue XBL provides), and the usual fanboy stuff decided. Yeah, Live sucks because you can't browse the intarweb.
#21: "...the potential of nintendo selling every nes, snes, gameboy, GENESIS, and n64 game (plus others)..."
That's all its ever going to remain - potential. It's really annoying how people have this attitude/expectation that on day one, Nintendo is going to have every single NES/SNES/N64/TG-16/Genesis game up for download. It won't even be a blip on the radar. They'll probably have a few games from each platform, maybe not even that much. You guys expecting to see every NES game - be it at launch or even 3 years from launch - are going to be sorely disappointed. I wouldn't expect them to have more games than Live for at least a year, and possibly never if MS steps it up with XBL Arcade as they seem to be doing.
#26: "Tecmo Bowl is a more exciting draw than Geometry Wars."
Only if you're wearing the rose-colored (and Coke Bottle) glasses. Tecmo Bowl was fun when I was 9, but the easily explotable gameplay and awful graphics make it a pure nostalgia experience, and nostalgia only carries you for so long. With Geometry Wars, you have the feeling you're playing something at least semi-new.