45 Million XB Live Arcade downloads by end of '07

[GunnyMo]

Microsoft's Marc Whitten revealed some goals and monetary achievements (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15092) for their XB Live Arcade.

According to Whitten, the company is predicting 45 million downloads and more than 100 games on Xbox Live Arcade by the end of 2007, as the Xbox 360-exclusive service continues to expand aggressively.

The Microsoft exec also revealed a 156% average financial return over 12 months for Xbox Live Arcade titles published so far, with over $30 million made on the service thus far, showing why the service has been a popular choice for developers.

[DaXIthR]

$30M for 45M downloads?

I know the cash is already in the bank, and the download total is a end-of-year projection...but the money figure doesn't look impressive at all.

[IrishWhiskey]

This despite the fact that 30% of 360 owners have never even heard of Live Arcade and 72% have never purchased them.....

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2007/08/xblaunknown.jpg

Link to story (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/13/research-30-of-xbox-owners-dont-know-about-xbla/)



And I guess that answers DaXIthRs question. There are far more people trying the content without buying than there are purchasing.

[KingGorilla]

Notice how Valve, though not a public company, does not do as much trumpeting as Microsoft. How much money do you think Steam makes in a year?

[Micasa]

Valve, as you said, isn't a publicly traded company, so they don't need to reveal financial details. If they had to reveal them, you can bet they'd use the opportunity to try and drum up further business.

[Loganrapp]

This despite the fact that 30% of 360 owners have never even heard of Live Arcade and 72% have never purchased them.....

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2007/08/xblaunknown.jpg

Link to story (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/13/research-30-of-xbox-owners-dont-know-about-xbla/)



And I guess that answers DaXIthRs question. There are far more people trying the content without buying than there are purchasing.



Well, it's one of those things where once you know it's there and how it works, you don't un-know it.

Out of a hundred million users (not an actual number, completely randomly chosen), that means 70 million are aware of what XBL is now capable of. Having that kind of awareness for the first iteration of Marketplace - to me - is very very positive. When XBox 720 rolls out, that will grow.

This is the first viable form of a digital marketplace on a console. That a wide majority of users are aware of it, and a significant subgroup of that demographic is actually utilizing it, makes me feel really good about how not only MS, but Sony, (maybe) Nintendo and anyone else wanting to get into the mix work new features into the next generation of consoles.

[Johan]

Well and good.

Ultimately, none of this all matters to me. I'm just quite happy to demo the games and buy the ones I like.

[StGeorge]

Once broadband gets to the 200 mb/s level or so, we'll be able to stream games right off their servers onto our 1TB internal flash drives. And it'll all feel natural to fight off 2 million other people raping Microsoft's servers for Halo 5.

[silv]

Demo's saved me a purchase of eternal sonata. I wanted to like it too =(

[DaXIthR]

Once broadband gets to the 200 mb/s level or so, we'll be able to stream games right off their servers onto our 1TB internal flash drives. And it'll all feel natural to fight off 2 million other people raping Microsoft's servers for Halo 5.

Those with resources are already doing some pretty impressive speeds. I know what you're saying, but I'm guessing you never heard of this (http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/07/worlds-fastest-.html).

[TrackZero]

Goddamn money to be made in the online download game marketspace (XBL, Sony and Wiigames).

[TrackZero]

$30M for 45M downloads?

I know the cash is already in the bank, and the download total is a end-of-year projection...but the money figure doesn't look impressive at all.

$30 million is $30 million man. Most games never come close to that.

[mister_slim]

Assuming that doesn't include other marketplace content, which I hope for MS's sake it doesn't, that's still only 4 million or so games sold. Maybe five. The Wii VC has already sold 5 million games in less than half the time and without anything but retro titles.

Another thought, looking at the numbers, the average XBLA title is grossing maybe half a million dollars. We'll assume XBLA follows a typical curve and a few games are making the majority of the money and the rest are making more like a quarter of a million. After MS takes their cut, approximately half, I doubt that's leaving much profit for the developer.

[Crowe]

It's good to see live is taking off. One could assume that Live is going to grow and grow,

[Jack B]

Sometimes when I look at the "60% of 360 owners use Xbox Live" statistics, I think to myself, "why not more?". Then when I see that 30% have never even heard of Xbox Live Arcade, I realize there are a whole lot of console buyers that really don't know much about their console than how to turn it on.

Facts like "30% of 360 owners have never heard of Live" give me hope for the Evil Avatar community. We're in the upper 70% of informed console users. I'm so proud.

[Gorvi]

$30 million is $30 million man. Most games never come close to that.
I think he means on a matter of scale. If they're saying by the end of the year, that's not the most impressive thing in the world. Think about it: they said a few months back that there are 6 million LIVE members. Say that number is up to 8 by the end of the year. That'd be an average of about $3.75 spent per registered LIVE user, with an average of a little over 5.6 downloads total. That just seems a little low to me. I mean hell, the PSN has a paltry catalog compared to XBL, but I know I've downloaded well over 60 things, counting trailers, and spent at least $40 in the 7 months I've had the system.

[phantomhitman]

ill admit it, I spent 2 million on live arcade this year :(

[Flatpicker]

Seems to be that you shouldn't focus on the 30 mil number and more on the 156% avg return per title. That's going to get more devs interested in the system as a viable income source.

[Trazzlo the Magnificant]

I am surprised that 70% of the users even know Live is there. It's not because of lack of info, but rather that I am not sure how many people will bother to add a broadband outlet to their living room just to play games. I think that will change a lot in the future (within the next 2 years).

[TrackZero]

Assuming that doesn't include other marketplace content, which I hope for MS's sake it doesn't, that's still only 4 million or so games sold. Maybe five. The Wii VC has already sold 5 million games in less than half the time and without anything but retro titles.


$30 million / $6 (average of $4-8 cost per game)
= 5 million games sold.

Though that's under the assumption of a straight average, the cheaper games are more likely the larger base, which would change the numbers.

And Nintendo has ridden on nostalgia brand name games, which is a far easier sell than new IPs, of which Microsoft has far more of up for download.

In other news, Nintendo fans are sheep.

[TrackZero]

I think he means on a matter of scale. If they're saying by the end of the year, that's not the most impressive thing in the world. Think about it: they said a few months back that there are 6 million LIVE members. Say that number is up to 8 by the end of the year. That'd be an average of about $3.75 spent per registered LIVE user, with an average of a little over 5.6 downloads total. That just seems a little low to me. I mean hell, the PSN has a paltry catalog compared to XBL, but I know I've downloaded well over 60 things, counting trailers, and spent at least $40 in the 7 months I've had the system.

La ti da. I've downloaded hundreds of things on XBL. This is referring specifically to XBLA titles, not game trailers and other content. So that's moot.

On scale, this means that of the 66 games currently available on XBLA, we're looking at:

$30 million / 66 = $454,545 per game average

I can tell you, those games don't cost that much to produce. That's fucking bling bling on a short development cycle.

So don't be hating. It's showing how much money can be made in this space (this should be inspiring to developers on all the consoles download services).

[Gorvi]

La ti da. I've downloaded hundreds of things on XBL. This is referring specifically to XBLA titles, not game trailers and other content. So that's moot.

On scale, this means that of the 66 games currently available on XBLA, we're looking at:

$30 million / 66 = $454,545 per game average

I can tell you, those games don't cost that much to produce. That's fucking bling bling on a short development cycle.

So don't be hating. It's showing how much money can be made in this space (this should be inspiring to developers on all the consoles download services).
Ahh, I missed the part where it was just XBLA titles, I thought it was all for LIVE. And yeah, it definately shows that there's money to be made from these games, but we already knew that, didn't we? It's just not that big from a per user average is all I'm saying, but this shows that it doesn't really need to be as long as there's that market out there that's willing to buy these games up.

[PsychoticVile]

$30M for 45M downloads?

I know the cash is already in the bank, and the download total is a end-of-year projection...but the money figure doesn't look impressive at all.

They count people who download just the demo version in their download total that's why they're not saying 45 million sales.

[Trazzlo the Magnificant]

They count people who download just the demo version in their download total that's why they're not saying 45 million sales.
I also assumed that many of those downloads are demo's of retail games, so they result in sales that don't include Live.

[mister_slim]

$30 million / $6 (average of $4-8 cost per game)
= 5 million games sold.

Though that's under the assumption of a straight average, the cheaper games are more likely the larger base, which would change the numbers.

Where are you getting that average? Can you even buy a game for $4? If $5 games make up 80% of the games sold, they might have sold 5 million. It's possible, though I think it's unlikely.

On scale, this means that of the 66 games currently available on XBLA, we're looking at:

$30 million / 66 = $454,545 per game average

I can tell you, those games don't cost that much to produce. That's fucking bling bling on a short development cycle.
I don't know, I think most of the games on XBLA are close to $200,000, which doesn't leave that much money after MS takes their cut.

[Trazzlo the Magnificant]

Where are you getting that average? Can you even buy a game for $4? If $5 games make up 80% of the games sold, they might have sold 5 million. It's possible, though I think it's unlikely.

I don't know, I think most of the games on XBLA are close to $200,000, which doesn't leave that much money after MS takes their cut.
One of the developers stated that they saw Live sales as steady income over time. That makes sense as new consoles are sold and people buy a few existing titles. It isn't a big explosion of cash, but it helps pay monthly bills while working on new titles.

[Jack B]

That just seems a little low to me. I mean hell, the PSN has a paltry catalog compared to XBL, but I know I've downloaded well over 60 things, counting trailers, and spent at least $40 in the 7 months I've had the system.

I downloaded about 60 things myself just during a single E3 week over a year ago. They are talking about downloads of trailers, demos etc. This was just a Live Arcade presentation not all of Live.

I can't remember the numbers, but I thought they'd passed 1 billion in downloaded things on Live. I know you don't own a 360, but if you could see how much content is available it's staggering.

[Gorvi]

I downloaded about 60 things myself just during a single E3 week over a year ago. They are talking about downloads of trailers, demos etc. This was just a Live Arcade presentation not all of Live.

I can't remember the numbers, but I thought they'd passed 1 billion in downloaded things on Live. I know you don't own a 360, but if you could see how much content is available it's staggering.
Oh, yeah, I figure it is, that's why it seemed so low initially. It still seems a little low though, especially considering how long the 360 has been up. I just figured cheap arcade games would sell at an astounding rate. I know I can't help but snatch up the good ones when they come around, it's too good a deal to pass up.

[Johan]

I have downloaded hundreds of "items" off of Live (trailers, demos, videos, assorted stuff).

I'm doing wonders for their attach rate...44 games and counting.