Yesterday Microsoft revealed an interesting bit of information regarding their Xbox Live statistics. Apparently Xbox Live now has over 35 million users, that’s 5 million more than the last reported numbers from January. Now it’s important to note that these numbers reflect global Xbox Live users. At the tail end of last year, Microsoft had added nine new countries to their Xbox Live coverage, which may have played a role in this user growth.
Microsoft is being rather tight lipped, not specifying how many of these 35 Million users are registered Gold subscribers (paid subscription) versus Silver subscribers (unpaid subscription). The last reported numbers say that there’s 12 million Gold users, but that’s from November so it’s feasible that it has gone up. Microsoft did say, however, that it is making “more revenue from the transaction space than the subscription space.” This simply means that Microsoft is making more money from downloadable purchases (Xbox Live Arcade games, Zune Marketplace, etc.) than from Gold subscriptions.
Regardless of how many Xbox Live users are actually paying for the service, these numbers show that gaming is growing more and more popular with each day. With a wider acceptance of gaming, it only makes sense that popular acceptance of eSports is soon to follow.