XBL has 12.5 Gold members

Microsoft has said that it currently has around 12.5m paying subscribers to Xbox Live. Subscriptions to the service currently cost 40 a year in the UK.

Of our 25m members, about half of them are subscribers to the business and pay us about $60 a year for that,” Microsoft’s head of Interactive Entertainment Dennis Durkin said at the Credit Suisse Annual Technology Conference, as reported by IGN.

So it’s a very large business for us and for our partners.”

Durkin added that Gold subscribers in the US spend an average of three hours a day logged into Xbox Live, and that 40 per cent of those users access non-gaming applications such as Netflix and Facebook.

This is a great opportunity for our media partners to stay connected with their customers and to sell them goods that they care about in their home,” he added. Whether that’s game add-ons, movies, music, or clothing for their avatars, this is a very big business.”