Fifty Percent of Xbox LIVE Users Are Gold Subscribers, So Says Microsoft

By Chris Burns/Updated: Dec. 2, 2010 4:49 pm EST

Hanging out over at the Credit Suisse technology conference just yesterday was Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Division CEO, mister Dennis Durkin. He had a rather interesting statistic to share with the audience: 50% of all Xbox Live users pay for a Gold Subscription. What that means is that, since there are around 25 million Xbox Live subscribers in the world, 12.5 million people pay $60 a year to be able to access its additional features.

Recently Microsoft increased the price of Xbox LIVE by a few bucks, amping US price up $10 from the previous $50 a year. Some of the features this additional yearly subscription affords you are online multi-player functionality, access to ESPN, and access to Netflix (in addition to whatever you pay Netflix.) Shouldn't that stuff be... free?

[Via CrunchGear]