Xbox Live hits one-million member mark

Microsoft announced that its online gaming service for the Xbox, Xbox Live, has surpassed the one-million member mark. Launched in November 2002, the subscription gaming service reached the membership milestone three times faster than HBO, America Online, and TiVo.

Microsoft noted some statistics about its subscriber service, including that peak usage time for Xbox Live is between 7:30pm and 9:00pm. Some of the more interesting numbers are:

• Players in 24 countries have spent more than 160-million hours (or 20,000 years) playing Xbox Live.
• Members are playing an average of 265,549 hours every day.
• Players have logged more than 220-million online sessions, an average of 10.5-million sessions per month.
• The top 15 cities worldwide boasting the most Xbox Live members are Tokyo, London, Houston, Chicago, Toronto, San Diego, New York and Brooklyn, NY, Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Calgary and Alberta, Canada, San Antonio, Las Vegas, and Seoul, Korea.

The company also went on to say that it expects membership to increase even further as Electronic Arts' upcoming sports games, including Madden 2005, and Halo 2 hit stores. Microsoft will also be launching Xbox Live Arcade, a collection of classic games, including Atari and Namco titles, as part of its regular service this fall.