Bloomberg: Xbox Live sales 'probably' topped $1 billion

Bloomberg guesstimates that Microsoft's Xbox Live service "probably" surpassed $1 billion this past fiscal year. The financial outlet came to that conclusion using fancy mathematicals after Microsoft claimed that half of Xbox Live's 25 million users paid the annual fee, and Xbox COO Dennis Durkin stated "in an email" that product sales on the service surpassed subscription revenue. Now, we all know there are ways around the $50 annual Xbox Live fee, but let's surmise Bloomberg is right with its estimate of $600 million in revenue. That would mean the service generated $1.2 billion in sales last year.

Contacted for comment, Microsoft's official statement read: "We do not have any more details to share. Microsoft does not break out Xbox LIVE earnings." At the end of the company's third quarter, it did say that Xbox Live was a major contributor to revenue for the division that houses the Xbox. The company will officially announce the results of its fiscal year, which ended June 30, on July 22.

Reader Comments (29)

Dang

@shadowj0

Tool confirmed.

All this money and yet we STILL don't have dedicated servers for every game.

@SecrtAgentMan

Wait not all games have those? And people bitch and moan that "Xbox has em" ..

@SecrtAgentMan
Why did he get downvoted when he's absolutely right? Gears of War 2 is published by Microsoft yet doesn't even get dedicated servers. As one of the games I play most on Live (with such ridiculous host advantage) I fail to see how my Gold membership does anything good for that.

@shravis Nah it's cool, I don't care really.

I love my XBOX and XBL but not having dedicated servers when they make this much money makes me wonder where exactly it's all going to.

@shravis

I don't think any console game has dedicated servers. There's always some central matchmaking server that quietly picks one of the players to host, whoever has the best connection. And usually if they drop its able to restore state somewhere else and resume the game. I've rarely run into connection issues playing multiplayer games.

@Raffi256 Both Battlefield Bad Company 1 and 2 have dedicated servers, without them it'd be impossible to host the 24 player matches.

@Raffi256

EA always use their own servers.

@SecrtAgentMan

Btw, this is where all the money went:

http://kotaku.com/5548282/xbox-boss-has-a-very-excellent-house

@SecrtAgentMan

Straight into the pockets of the execs...

Honestly, these guys are just laughing all the way to the bank for literally doing next to nothing for Xbox Live subscribers.

@SecrtAgentMan It's being thrown down the money-losing vortex that is the Home and Entertainment division in an attempt to plug it up. H&E is like Microsoft's Deep Horizon. Even with the XBL fee, they division often posts losses, but without it, they'd always be posting losses. Sadly, the Zune, the recently launched and canceled Kin, and Windows Mobile 7 aren't doing much to help with the finances.

@sigma8 correction: entertainment and devices (E&D) division

So, now we know only half are Gold members.

If MS did generate a billion from Live, you can bet that Greenburg will be all over the net and most likely shouting it from the rooftops.

I wouldn't be surprise if this is true. Live does a killing, man. Hats off to MS but they need to stop restricting some features to Gold though. If you making a Billion dollars off of a service then help the little person at times too.

Just a thought.

@MLC

I hate to say it, but if you're making a billion dollars... screw the little people. If they don't care about them now, they won't care about them later. At the end of the day it's a business that cares about the bottom line. Though they might appear to be, Sony and Nintendo aren't any different.

"I CHOOSE... BUSINESS ETHICS."

@Uncle Jesse

That's not true. Sony's making money but at least they're not exploiting everybody by charging for BASIC level access to multiplayer games.

I'm not saying that Sony's like the most holy of all companies, but at least the consumer is getting a relatively good deal from the ps3 console, all things considered.

Really hope Microsoft can release the gaming division to be an seperate entity in Sony style, i.e MSCE, Inc. Not likely, though

Anyone else feel ripped off with Live. Paying every year for it but really what advantages does the service offer? PSN offers a very good online (admittedly not as fleshed out as XBL) and PC offers a better online service (not in all cases, but many).

I'd rather see that money going to improving the service/new IPs, not pissed away on getting MW2 map packs a month earlier.

@ExplicitFunction

I don't.

@ExplicitFunction

No it's so cheap that it totally falls off the radar for me.

@Bubbameister33

"I don't. "

Of course not, Deebo makes all his income from bullying everyone in his path.

@ExplicitFunction

I do. When I tried multiplayer on PSN, I felt XBL was ripping me off. It's when XBL started to prominently put huge amounts of advertisements from Subway, Dr. Pepper, Axe, Trident, Gillette, etc, that I decided to not renew my Gold subscription anymore.

@Ballistic H

I don't its like 4 bux a month half the people on here spend 50-100 dollars a day on the Chronic....Shout out to Dr.Dre....But seriously its worth it for the cross game chat alone

@ExplicitFunction

I do. And I'm barely ever on Live, that's the worst part.

I just accept it as being a fact of life, like battered wife syndrome.

"I'd rather see that money going to improving the service/new IPs, "

wtf... he got downvoted for saying he wants to see new IP??, and maybe improving the service with stuff like dedicated servers.

fine whatever, enjoy Halo 4 and Gears of War 4 at MS next E3 conference.

Looks like they might have regain the lost from their Red Ring Of Death.

All that money, yet they still can't justify giving us BBC iPlayer for free...

Sony should be crying for this news.

Bloomberg: Xbox Live sales 'probably' topped $1 billion

Reader Comments (29)

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 8:05PM SecrtAgentMan said

Posted: Jul 8th 2010 2:20AM BigEgo007 said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 8:05PM SecrtAgentMan said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 8:32PM Faenix said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 9:11PM shravis said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 10:14PM SecrtAgentMan said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 10:16PM Raffi256 said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 10:19PM SecrtAgentMan said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 11:23PM Ballistic H said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 11:33PM Ballistic H said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 11:47PM kentuckyfried said

Posted: Jul 8th 2010 11:27AM sigma8 said

Posted: Jul 8th 2010 3:47PM sigma8 said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 8:06PM Ballistic H said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 8:23PM MLC said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 9:08PM Uncle Jesse said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 11:49PM kentuckyfried said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 8:30PM ybfelix said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 9:28PM ExplicitFunction said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 9:40PM Bubbameister33 said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 10:09PM Raffi256 said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 10:12PM QuePasa87 said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 11:27PM Ballistic H said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 11:38PM ExMcCloud said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 11:51PM kentuckyfried said

Posted: Jul 7th 2010 11:41PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Jul 8th 2010 3:38AM jamesFF said

Posted: Jul 8th 2010 6:43AM stevieboy84 said

Posted: Jul 8th 2010 10:52AM shortboy12 said

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