According to a new report from Bloomberg, Microsoft’s Xbox Live service brought in $1.2 billion revenue for the fiscal 2009 year.
For the year ended June 30th, about 12.5 million Xbox Live users paid an annual fee to play games online which Bloomberg says would account for about $600 million in revenue. Xbox Live COO Dennis Durkin says on top of that, sales of DLC, movies and TV topped subscription revenue for the first time ever, and by a significant margin, leading us to the final $1.2 billion figure.
Success with Xbox Live is key to Microsoft’s Entertainment division, which has seen slow sales of Zune media players, slow smartphone sales, and a barely profitable Xbox 360 console, which sees most of its profit from software and accessory sales.
Adds Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft: “Xbox Live has helped sell a lot of consoles and created a lot of loyalty. Everyone has been talking about Microsoft’s inability to innovate, but this is a pretty good example where they have innovated. They timed it just right with this one.”
If accurate, revenue would have jumped from $800 million in 2008, a pretty hefty increase.
Result for: media players
Creative has announced the launch of the Zii MediaBook e-reader, marking the company’s entry into the seemingly crowded e-book reader market.
The MediaBook will use Creative’s powerful Zii application processor, used in the company’s HD media players such as the Zii Egg.
The device will do more than just read books, and will include social networking integration and video playback.
Adds Willie Png, vice president for strategic business, Creative: “The MediaBook will harness videos, pictures, text and services in one device that supports rich media experience.”
No word on price or release date but this e-reader should be a game changer.
Video available here: Zii MediaBook
Result for: media players
At the Intel Developer Forum, Intel Corporation executives Eric Kim and Justin Rattner discussed what is needed when the full Internet converges with broadcast networks, laying out the opportunities to make the TV experience more visual, more personal and more interactive.
As the senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Home Group, Eric Kim unveiled the Intel Atom processor CE4100 SoC, the newest in a family of consumer electronics (CE) media processors, and announced efforts with several key industry players including Adobe, CBS, Cisco and TransGaming which are helping to make the vision of interactive TV a reality in the short-term.
“At the center of the TV evolution is more processing power, which we deliver with the CE4100 media processor, built on the Intel Atom core and optimized for IPTV digital set-tops, connected media players and digital TVs,” said Kim. “With its performance and high-resolution graphics capabilities, CE manufacturers and software developers now have a platform for real innovation.”
“By the year 2015, you can expect 15 billion consumer devices capable of delivering TV content with billions of hours of video available,” said Rattner. “We’ll need much more sophisticated ways to organize content and provide it on demand. Intel Labs researchers are working on evolving technology so people can get the TV content they want, when they want it and wherever they want it.”
Kim disclosed that Intel and Adobe Systems are working together to port Adobe Flash Player 10, a key tool for content developers, to the new family of SoC media processors. This will result in future CE devices that are optimized for playback of graphics and H.264 video to enable for the first time a wide array of Flash Player 10-based applications on the television.
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