On August 11, 2009 Microsoft shipped the latest update to Xbox LIVE, and members of the gaming community built around the company console will notice that the refreshed dashboard introduces a new feature dubbed Tenure. Microsoft explained that not all users would be able to see their Tenure immediately. However, the promise from the software giant is that by next week, the feature will be available for all members of Xbox LIVE with at least 1 full year in Xbox LIVE Gold status. The Redmond company revealed that it was rolling out the Gold Tenure to Xbox LIVE users, but that the process would take at least a few days to complete.

Essentially, Tenure will be a number that will appear at the top right of the gamercard. “This is a number that appears when you are looking at Gamercards on your Xbox 360 console. This number will show how many years someone has been an Xbox LIVE Gold Member. Working with the team here, we’ve put together some answers to some of the frequent questions that we’ve seen in the Xbox forums,” explained Larry Hryb, director of programming for the Microsoft gaming network Xbox Live.

Hryb revealed that the first gamertag, “e,” which was created on 8/13/2002, would turn 7 on 8/13/2009. The company however counts only the time gamers spend in Gold, all periods being cumulative, but ignores Silver entirely. “All the time you spend in Gold is cumulative and any time you spend in silver doesn't count. For example if you created a gamertag on August 4th of 2007 but didn't upgrade it to gold until February 14th of 2008; today the Gold Tenure would be 1 year because the account spent 6 months of its first year in Silver status,” Hryb stated.

With the latest Xbox LIVE update Microsoft has also changed the way that Tenure was calculated for Gold members. In this regard, the company has scrapped the "14 day gap in service" rule that cause tenures to reset. At the same time, the software giant informed that modifying the gamertag would have no impact on Tenure.