Xbox Live Passes the 50 Million Downloads Mark

Microsoft's highly successful subscription-based online gaming service for the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles, celebrates record heights surpassing 50 million downloads from Xbox Live's Marketplace, twice the mark it reached just three months ago. Gamers have logged a whopping 2 billion hours online to experience not just multiplayer gaming, but also the latest game demos, movie trailers and music videos.

The reason gamers are flocking to Xbox Live in record numbers is the release of Madden NFL 2007 on August 22nd from Electronic Arts. Within the first week of release, gamers unlocked more than 600,000 achievements and Xbox Live hosted more than 2 million hours of game play, the equivalent to 228 years of online gaming in the first seven days alone.

The fastest downloaded game on the Xbox Live Marketplace is "Texas Hold 'em", the first poker game on Xbox Live Arcade, with over 100 downloads per minute in the first 24 hours of the title's release. It is also the first game to be offered for free by Microsoft during the first 48 hours following launch.

Some top Xbox Live statistics:
- More than 50 million downloads of gaming and entertainment content from Xbox Live Marketplace to date;
- Over 2 billion hours spent on Xbox Live by gamers across the globe since the launch of the Xbox Live online gaming network in November 2002;
- More than 60 percent of Xbox 360 owners are connected to Xbox Live;
- 1,300,000 text and voice messages are sent via Xbox Live every day. Currently totaling half a billion sent messages between the Xbox Live community per year, this figure is set to explode with the launch of the Xbox Live Vision camera on 19th September, 2006 in the U.S. and 6th October in Europe;
- 65 per cent of all connected consoles already downloading and playing Xbox Live Arcade titles;
- Over 8 million downloads of Xbox Live Arcade games following the launch of Xbox 360;
- Over 2 billion Microsoft Points sold to date;