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

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]