Since Xbox Live's online gaming network launched in November 2002, gamers have spent over 1.5 billion hours on the network playing games online with their friends around the world. This is equal to 65 million days of gaming or close to 200,000 years. With our top title, Halo 2, which is being played on both the Xbox and Xbox 360, gamers have spent over 500 million hours playing online.
Not only are the majority of our owners connected, but they are also spending more time connected to the Xbox Live community on Xbox 360 than ever before. The average number of gaming sessions on Xbox Live on Xbox 360 is currently at 25-a-week, which is up dramatically from the average of 6 sessions-a-week we saw on the original Xbox.
Xbox Live on Xbox 360 continues to grow as a social community; we are seeing an average of 600,000 text messages sent every day between members on the service.
We have already had over 10 million downloads on Marketplace in the first 4 months on the market, reaching this milestone faster than iTunes did when it launched. Playable game demos remain the most popular item with over half of our consumers downloading these.
Xbox Live Arcade has been an instant hit on the Xbox 360, with over 60% of all connected consoles already downloading and playing Xbox Live Arcade titles.
Every Xbox Live Arcade title has a free trial version. To-date, we are seeing on average 20% trial to purchase conversion rates across all Arcade titles, with our top title converting at 39%.
Xbox Live Arcade group manager Greg Canessa (pictured) tells Next Generation that retro downloadable Nintendo games "won't hold up", and as far as a Sony online service goes... "good luck".
ImageSince it was first conceived as a humble disc for the original Xbox, Xbox Live Arcade has grown from a side note in the Xbox Live story into a viable revenue stream. Games like Bizarre's original Geometry Wars and classics like Smash TV and Gauntlet are proving to be hits for the platform, and the list of games is becoming larger and more compelling. The upcoming Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting sounds like it will just be the first of many Capcom titles that will be hitting the system (fingers crossed for some "Versus" action), and large and independent publishers and developers alike are offering up games at a frantic pace. Deals with Konami, Midway and Atari ensure we'll see more classics, and healthy relationships with indie game publishers such as Garage Games will keep interest piqued with new innovative quick-play casual games.
Canessa gives us his thoughts on Nintendo's proposed Revolution retro-games download service, and how he believes Sony has a lot of groundwork to lay down before it even thinks of a games download service.
On Nintendo's retro service
"I think it was interesting to see Nintendo's announcement for the Revolution downloadable games service which, of course, came over a year after we launched our initiative internally and around nine months after we already launched the first generation of Arcade for Xbox. I think it was a responsive move. Their service is interesting in sort of a 'retro' way, but I view Arcade as being so much more than what they're planning on doing. Their service is kind of a subset of what we're doing. We have a retro coin-op category within Arcade - the Midway titles have been performing amazingly - and we're doing a lot more in that space. Of course, we're doing Street Fighter, we've announced our partnership with Konami, Atari, and Midway - more titles are coming from Midway. So, we're going to be doing a lot in the retro space, console and coin-op. But that's just one part of the Arcade strategy.
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Canessa gives us his thoughts on Nintendo's proposed Revolution retro-games download service, and how he believes Sony has a lot of groundwork to lay down before it even thinks of a games download service.
