Xbox users spend 1 billion hours a month on Xbox Live

If you ever sit around wondering where all the hours in the day went, it appears that there is a good chance that they went directly to Microsoft. In a new batch of figures released by Major Nelson, he confirms that Xbox Live is doing kind of ok. Assuming you consider people spending a billion hours online ok. Which you should, because it is a staggering figure.

Another surprising figure is the amount of time spent watching movies and TV shows on the Xbox. It isn’t surprising to see people using their consoles for video entertainment, but an hour and a half from 42-percent of the 25 million users is a significant number.

• There are 42 million consoles sold in 35 countries.

• In the last year alone there has been an 157 percent increase in the time spent watching movies and television on Xbox.

• 42 percent of Xbox LIVE Gold members in the US are watching an average of an hour of television and movies on their Xbox, every single day or more than 30 hours of digitally distributed television and movies a month.

• The 25 million members of Xbox LIVE around the world are each spending more than 30 hours per month on the service – that means cumulatively Xbox LIVE members are now logging more than one billion hours a month on the service.

• Access to Xbox LIVE is expanding from 26 countries to 35 this November.

Xbox’s online service continues to grow and evolve. Microsoft released the long-awaited update to the dashboard earlier today, which introduces ESPN among other services to the Xbox 360, so expect those viewing numbers to increase.