Microsoft: Xbox only used 60% of the time for games

By Tom Warren, on 12th Nov 10 11:32 am with 3 Comments

Microsoft has revealed that the Xbox 360 is only used only 60% of the time for games.

Microsoft’s corporate vice president and chief operating and financial officer of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, Dennis Durkin, revealed the statistic at a Digital Entertainment Conference in New York this week. “What we found is the core gamer might be the person who brought the console into the house, but as you widen the choices of content, it broadens what people can do with the system,” Durkin said.

Microsoft has found that 40% of Xbox Live members in the U.S. are using their consoles for non-gaming activities like watching movies from Netflix, listening to Zune music and using social networking services like Twitter and Facebook. News.com reports that Microsoft currently has 25 million Xbox Live subscribers, half of which pay for the gold premium service.

Durkin also spoke about the Xbox’s controller-less gaming accessory, Kinect, which was released last week. Durking didn’t reveal specific sales numbers but said “everything we’ve been shipping has been selling.”

  • http://twitter.com/ceaules_baules dilibau cotzcaru

    12 mil gold XBL members times $50/per year ($55 now that Kinect launched) equals at least $600.000.000 per annum in revenues ONLY from subscriptions. Pretty impressive

  • http://twitter.com/williamtm/ WilliamTM

    “Microsoft has found that 40% of Xbox Live members in the U.S. are using their consoles for non-gaming activities like [...] Twitter and Facebook.”

    That doesn’t include me then. I never use the Twitter app (desktop/iPhone apps are far far better, not to mention they have keyboards), and I only use the Facebook app to find friends on LIVE. Most of what I use the 360 for is gaming really. I have my PC and Sky+HD for everything else. :P

    • Tom W

      Agreed, I don’t use Twitter and Facebook on there either. I know a number of friends who use Facebook to view pictures. I personally use the non-gaming functions a lot for movies :)