Microsoft released some interesting stats today at GDC. A good summary of them can be found here. Some observations:
Halo 2 is the most popular Xbox Live game. I’m unsure if that is a testament to Halo 2’s yummy goodness or a lament for better 360 multiplayer games. Perhaps both.
Geometry Wars is not even in the top five Xbox Live Arcade games. That’s crazy. Microsoft should insist you purchase it as a condition of obtaining an Xbox Live Gold account. Perhaps you should only get probationary Gold status until you break 100k.
5 billion+ Microsoft Points have been activated to date. I’m unsure how that translates into revenue because although Microsoft Points were priced at equivalent prices in the different regions it operates in originally, currency fluctuations have ensured that there are significant differences in the cost of MS Points over time. I’m also unsure how many ways there have been to get ‘free’ MS Points from promotions or whatnot. Regardless, it seems to me that it works out to somewhere between 40 and 80 million dollars in total revenue from MS Points. That’s certainly significant and I’m sure MS is reasonably happy about it, but Halo 3 alone will obliterate that total. I wonder how significant a portion of the Xbox platform revenue will ever come from MS Points.
360 owners have unlocked almost 300 million Achievements, for a total Gamerscore of just about 7.5 billion. I picture a large promotion by MS, wherein they pledge to release for free on Xbox Live (whether game or film/tv content) if the collective 360 owners can boost the collective Gamerscore to . Daring 360 owners to get 10 billion would be a really interesting and completely unprecedented thing to do on consoles, as far as I know. I think it’d resonate with 360 owners too. I could see people in Gears of War, for instance, helping each other unlock the achievements.
It’d be quite interesting to see how much community action Microsoft could garner out of the Xbox Live users.
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 8th, 2007 at 12:29 am
Pingback from Playstation 3 » Xbox Live Stats
March 8th, 2007 at 4:10 am
RWHC
Haha… I’ve been following GDC as closely as I can through the internet and of course it’d be you who’d come up with a community based idea like daring them to reach a certain number of points… Interesting to see how different developers and analysts think about the same subject.
You’ve been challenging the community for years in Achaea with events and stuff.
March 8th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Acrune
Halo 2 is a great game. I’d be playing it all the time, but my friends all play gears of war. Which I consider to be rather over-rated considering how bugged it is, and how dull the multiplayer tends to be. Run to the middle of the (small) map, kill, die, wait for the round to end. Repeat lots for the 6 or so maps. Then there is the rampant bug abuse, and the accidental bug encounters (falling through the floor tends to happen now and then). I think if they could fix the bugs in GoW it could rival Halo 2. Until then, GoW makes me want to strangle kittens. I think buggy multiplayer is more the problem that 360 games are having, not poor game quality.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Matt
I’m curious what the major bugs are in GoW. Could you detail?
–matt
March 9th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Acrune
One map I’ve seen a person fall through the ground on a few occasions, I’ve seen a person get stuck to a wall (they roll away, and glide back to the wall). There have been times where I (and others) have been unable to change between weapons in the inventory, a couple times my character got stuck halfway done a melee attack, so I couldn’t shoot or finish the melee attack until I switched weapons. There are also chainsaw glitches. One allows you to jump really far over a wall, instead of the normal climb-over, another allows an instant chainsaw kill (without the standard 2-3 second kill that lets other people come up to you and finish you when you’re done the kill). I’ve also rolled away from a chainsaw attempt only to be chainsawed from about 10 feet away. Then there is getting chainsawed when you’re standing behind the chainsawer. Apparently if your camera is in the right location, you can shoot/chainsaw people behind you. When the game first came out, there was a map that was really easy to leave the intended area and run around in the (rather large) background area, not sure if its been fixed, I’ve never tried it. There are other things thats are probably lag related, but its annoying to have the host have a better range on the shotgun, or to snipe someone and see the shot go through them, or to shoot them in the face with a boomshot (rocket launcher) and see them live through it. Then there are the ones that don’t affect game play much, but are still weird. Once I got chainsawed, my character didn’t do the “I’m getting chainsawed” motions, but the chainsawer did, so he was flailing around, then I exploded.
The game is still playable, and enjoyable, but the bugs are a little vexing.
March 14th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Acrune
http://www.trendpimp.com/article/159/Top_10_Gears_Of_War_Glitches.html
Videos of various glitches.
Last night I played 4 ranked games, in 2 games the “Instand Chainsaw Explosion” was used, and in another the “Weapon Swap Without Pickup” was used. Very annoying. Its much more fun to just play unranked with people you know won’t cheat.