Xbox Live Revenues Hits $1 Billion.

For the first time since its original launch in 2002, Xbox Live has generated over $1 billion dollars according to a recent report by Bloomberg News.

This report outlines Microsoft currently sees around half of its 25 million Xbox Live members pay a $49.99 annual subscription fee to receive the Gold member status. This by itself totals around $600 million in revenue. Additional sales of avatar items, movies, and other downloadable content pushed revenue to an estimated $1.2 billion for Microsoft's fiscal year ended June 30.

who cares?

I think Sony cares, they about to start a fee based online model of their own.

Sony don't care and their fee based service is completely different to Microsofts.

Great, now that the demand is there that $49.99 annual subscription fee to receive the Gold member status will probably go up.

Everything I've read says playing online will still be free. The fee will be to purchase things on the PSN instead of paying for them individually.

PSN Premium is just so you can get demos earlier and some stuff is cheaper.

You don't need to pay to play.

And it's already out.