Xbox Live now boasts 48 million active users up from 39 million from last quarter

By Daniel Rubino
published

Looks like Microsoft's focus on gaming and the Xbox One is finally paying off. With the release of Halo 5: Guardians, Minecraft and a strong portfolio of games this holiday season.

Microsoft has added 9 million new gamers to their Xbox Live monthly user base from the previous quarter for a total of 48 million users. That's a 30% increase year over year. The numbers were revealed in their FY2016 Q2 earnings earnings report filed today.

Gaming revenue grew by 9 percent and video games revenue grew 57%.

Interestingly, hardware revenue was down, which Microsoft attributes to lower volumes of Xbox 360 consoles being sold.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has not yet revealed just how many Xbox One consoles were sold, although the number is likely healthy enough considering the Xbox Live users they pulled in over the last three months.

Microsoft may still trail Sony and their PlayStation 4, but their business looks healthier than ever.

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

52 Comments
  • Finally. But live has always been healthy
  • True, but this is a large jump
  • They reported 48m paid subscribers to live last time (total not active). Wonder how much that's gone up.
  • Since not so many 360s being solds the majority of those users would be on Xbox One (not counting eventually new phone users that might created account that way)
  • Is this gold members or all live members?
  • all, but rev was up generally for gaming except for hardware revenue
  • "hardware revenue was down, which Microsoft attributes to lower volumes of Xbox 360 consoles being sold." This doesn't bode well, though. We're more than two years into the Xbox One's life, and for most of the past quarter a 500GB Xbox One could be purchased for a mere $100 more than a 500GB Xbox 360. Declines in Xbox 360 sales shouldn't be impacting revenue that much unless only two Xbox Ones were being sold for every three Xbox 360s that used to be sold.
  • xbox one hardware is slightly up but asp is down
  • The sales of ps3 have seen an epic decline too. It seems people are finally ready to leap to this gen.
  • The Xbox one is not doing good outside the anglo markets (US/UK/Canada). There are also quite a few new stupid limitations when using the xbone outside these countries. One example, Switzerland has four official languages and Microsoft has decided that they must game in German (language is locked to region). They cant even chose English (which I guess most people prefer Master Cheif to spek). You CAN change region to US etc but that will lead into other problems and if you have the tuner, changing region will break it.  
  • In my mind I think Xbox one only down 3m
  • Good question!
  • It's not the number sold, but the eco system that Xbox is attached to that makes it more impressive than PS!
  • And Microsoft is focusing on Live as its benchmark for success going forward, too. Not the number of consoles sold. Xbox has transcended being about the console anyway and hopefully that continues to grow.
  • That would make sense since both Microsoft and Sony either lose money or break even on each console sold. They make money of the subscriptions and games sold. Sony did a good job selling console, but how are they doing with subscriptions and games sales?
  • Not to mention they get a bigger cut from ea now there's access
  • About the same numbers as WP users.
  • My Xbox has been nothing but pure joy I hear alot of people talk about the PS4 and online but to me Xbox live is a better gaming community
  • There almost exactly the same nothing is different
  • Xbox live for life
  • Guessing Xbox one is around 20M sold
  • Once again a complete lack of information about Xbox One sales data. It's worrying for Microsoft's console business hardware revenue is down, it should be ramping up significantly in the second year of a new console. All things considered, you have to think Xbox One hardware has moved little over 20m total.
  • Another "They didn't break down the numbers so it must be a failure comment." Apple doesn't announce how many watches they sold, they don't break down the number of iPad Mini vs. Air vs. Pro, they don't distinguish between desktops, workstations, and laptops. That is fine and you are a hater for asking for those numbers. Meanwhile Microsoft doesn't tell us Xbox Ones with an without Kinects sold, they don't break down Surface Pro 4 i3, i5, or i7 and give detailed information about how much SSD space for each of those sold, and so on. That means that Microsoft is hiding something, that they are ready to collapse, the products are a failure, Microsoft is lying to us (even tough that would be a felony to release a filing to the SEC with deliberately false information).  I would expect someone who has been a member for a little over an hour to be a better troll than this.
  • Yes, the xbox is estimated around 20 million units and the PS4 is reported at 35 million units
  • So if we look at this logically...9 million new users to XBL ...but not 9 million new Xboxes...does this mean PSN users are moving over? ​
  • I am pretty sure windows 10 is the reason behind this large jump. It features the xbox App, which requires users to sign into xbox live to use it. So this number is made of windows 10 (mobile+PC) owners and Xbox (360+One).
  • It's hard to say, cause it may include pc and windows phone. But either way it's 360 and Xbox one. And most likely it's also people using 2 systems not switching from Ps. As well as current users making multiple profiles etc. Alot is going Into those generic numbers
  • I doubt it, the 39 mil was in reference to paid accounts, you don't need to pay to get online on a Windows Phone/Win 10 PC.
  • No one creates more than one profile, you just don't need to! And you only need one xbox live account per xbox one too!
  • As much as I like Xbox I feel it is a dying platform, for every person I know that buys a X1, 10 move over to PS4. Just goes to show what good marketing can do cause while PSN is getting better XBL is still the superior network.
  • SO let's suppose you know 3 people who bought an Xbox One. You are saying that 30 people you personally know bought a PS4? Yea, got to call BS on that one. First off, PS4 is not outselling X1 by 10:1. The highest estimate is that PS4 is outselling the X1 2:1. So your highly unlikely personal anecdote doesn't match actual data. The only exception - you live in Japan. But with a name like Bill Gaugherty I think that is unlikely.
  • Umm he said people he knows lmfao just because it sells a certain way doesn't mean it's like that for his town.. I'm sure there's a Xbox majority town out there so that's absolutely stupid to think that way
  • You want to know how the Xbox One is doing?  Go to several local stores and see what their stock is.  Most of the stores in my area have only one or two on the shelf.  Looks to me that it is selling well at least on the retail level.
  • What are you talking about? It's selling better than the Xbox 360 ever did in the same period of time. Plus the Xbox 360 was the best selling console , and obliterated the PS3. Geez!
  • To be fair in the end, the Xbox 360 didn't obliterated the PS3 so much, in fact those consoles end up very close in sales, check it in VGChartz.
  • If I'm not mistaken before or just as the new consoles launched the ps3 tech sold more I believe.
  • In the end ps3 surpassed 360
  • And how is it superior what facts do u have?
  • PSN use to always drop my connections right in the middle of games on my PS3. That's one of the reasons I finally bought an Xbox 360 and it didn't let me down. I don't know how the network holds out for PS4 these days, and frankly I don't plan to buy one. And to say the Xbox is a dying platform is stupid.
  • Lol ever used the xbox N adapter?
  • My experience is the exact opposite.  Among everyone I know that owns both, they do the majority of their gaming on X1...stats like this (paid online membership renewals), games attach ratios, number of hours played all suggest that among gamers that own both consoles, they prefer/game more on X1.
  • I have both systems and I prefer my X1 over my PS4. I have an XBL gold account while I only use the free online service from Sony. I play more games on the X1 than the PS4, heck, I only play Warframe on the PS4.
  • I know one person with a PS4, eight with an Xbox One, dozens with a 360, and two with a PS3. 
  • It is not just marketing, it is also raw performance AND the PS4 being a better unit than Xbox outside US. Lack of Spotify, poor mediaplayer etc is also damaging the xbox and the wondefull controles and low sound volume will not make up for it. AND, where are the iniversal apps?
  • So half the users are still on 360?
  • I upgraded to an XB1 this last Christmas because of the new 360 titles seemed to be drying up.  I'm sure a lot of people will be do the same thing this year too.  
  • very nice, if only the windows phone market do the same... 
  • Great news for Xbox :) 
     
  • Anyone who is regering to VG Chartz should in te same fashion google/bing up how to blow up your leg and do it because it's as stupid. Neither xbox 360 and ps3 has stopped selling too so. But take away japan and 360 won/leads by a big margin!! All these comments here on wp central that xbox is dead , ms is dead, wp is dead and so on, no the only thing that is dead is your trolling and intelligence!
  • That a nice jump
  • Guess, I can say that I was one of 11 million :)
  • Creating an Xbox Live account is free on Windows 10 and doesn't require the purchase of an Xbox console. So meh...