XBox Live Hits 2 Million Concurrent Users

[Greg Tito]

XBox Live Hits 2 Million Concurrent Users

Two million players were logged into Xbox Live simultaneously, breaking the previous record. It's almost like a big new game came out, or something.

MajorNelson, aka Larry Hryb, Microsoft's XBLA Director of Programming, announced in a Twitter post [http://twitter.com/majornelson/status/5659241143] that the Xbox Live set a record of two million users playing simultaneously. Xbox Live boasts around 20 million users en toto, so Microsoft reported that over 10% of its subscribers were logged in concurrently.

It is not clear which game the users were playing, but all signs point to Modern Warfare 2 as the culprit. The tweet went out around 4pm yesterday, right about the time when people got home from their daily commitments and booted up the multiplayer in MW2.

The entirety of @MajorNelson [http://twitter.com/majornelson]'s Tweet:

We just hit a new #XboxLIVE record: Over TWO MILLION people connected to the service at once.

The previous record for concurrent users on Xbox Live was 1.5 million and was announced in January of 2009 after the successful Christmas 2008 period. One would anticipate that this Christmas season would only be better for Microsoft's online service.

That is, until the zombies attack.

Permalink

 

[Beefcakes]

That is, until the zombies attack.

....is there something your not telling us, Greg?
This scares me

But yes, I'm proud to say I contributed in some way to this total, I wonder what the number could have been if all those pirates weren't banned?

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

That is, until the zombies attack.

Somehow, I expect that to increase the numbers on XBL, if it happens to be a certain zombie attack were people are left for dead.

Damn, I'm going to be recorded as one of those 2 million faceless automatons that'll later be brain-wiped by microsoft and used as an army to take over the world.

 

[daviejjd]

Great, there were 2 million people online, yet i can still never find anyone to play PGR4 with!

 

[Woem]

I'm confused. So first they ban a whole bunch of people from XBL, and now they announced "most users online ever!" Was this before or after they banned those people?

 

[johnman]

Only 2 million worldwide? That strike me as quite low considering the 20 million install base, then again time zones do fuck things up a fair bit.

 

[Psychemaster]

That is, until the zombies attack.

....is there something your not telling us, Greg?
This scares me

But yes, I'm proud to say I contributed in some way to this total, I wonder what the number could have been if all those pirates weren't banned?

A lot higher, but then you have to admit that a considerable chunk of your userbase is cheating bastards.

Which may hold true even without the whole piracy thing.

 

[Kross]

I'm confused. So first they ban a whole bunch of people from XBL, and now they announced "most users online ever!" Was this before or after they banned those people?

After, they only banned about 5% of their account base.

 

[dark_taint92]

i can hold my hand up high saying i was one of those 2 million people, plus i wasnt playing mw2 i was playing l4d2 demo =D

 

[Woem]

I'm confused. So first they ban a whole bunch of people from XBL, and now they announced "most users online ever!" Was this before or after they banned those people?

After, they only banned about 5% of their account base.

Then that's actually a pretty cool announcement. I already had a commentator in my head saying "5 percent of those 2 million may or may not have been banned" real fast after the initial statement.

 

[squid5580]

So for all you who were on when this milestone was hit (I unfortunately wasn't) how was the service? Can I expect another free XBL game come Christmas?

 

[Tales of Golden Sun]

That's a lot.

 

[Something Amyss]

Great, there were 2 million people online, yet i can still never find anyone to play PGR4 with!

That's because there's only 12 of us not playing MW2, and we're spread across different titles.

 

[Starke]

For the record, I was playing Saints Row 2... not MW2

 

[Sulu]

That is, until the zombies attack.

....is there something your not telling us, Greg?
This scares me

But yes, I'm proud to say I contributed in some way to this total, I wonder what the number could have been if all those pirates weren't banned?

A lot higher, but then you have to admit that a considerable chunk of your userbase is cheating bastards.

Which may hold true even without the whole piracy thing.

No need to wonder! You simply take the 2 million and add on the rough number of pirates banned, probably around 800,000. Now we must take around 10% of that number to be fair and add the 80,000 to the 2 million. So a reasonable guess would be that 2,080,000 Xbox live players would have been on if the pirates were around. Then again 2 million is a rounded number itself.

 

[Flying-Emu]

That is, until the zombies attack.

I see what you did there.

 

[Ohlookit'sMatty]

What I'm surprised about is that xbox live could handle that many people online at one time // You every try &play WoW when a realm is full?! Lag city comes to mind &if people were playin MW2,which is the most like case, even a second of lag can get you killed

But still I'm sure the people at xbox live are quite happy with themselves

-M

 

[theaceplaya]

I was a part of that... but definitely playing Mass Effect. Gotta get my Shepard ready for the sequel!

 

[GonzoGamer]

I'm betting this had more to do with mw2 and banned 360 owners (not realizing they can save their previous account) creating new accounts than anything else.

Look for a huge boost in 360 sales for this month too: a lot of people replacing their chipped & broken console. I'm sure they'll spin that to look real good too.

 

[gRiM_rEaPeRsco]

If the xbox doesnt have dedicted servers just what are xbox live users paying monthly for?