Xbox LIVE users top 2 million

It's no real secret that Microsoft has never turned a profit with their game consoles. They've thrown money at the Xbox since it's first few days (remember the five hundred million dollar marketting budget?) and if you've ever worked even retail at a game store you know the free systems, games, perks, and parties Microsoft throws for everyone in the industry. Of course, this is Microsoft, and they do have money to burn, but you have to think that at some point it's just not going to be worth it.

Of course, MS has a long term plan and a lot of patience. One of their investments is paying off it seems, since Xbox LIVE just passed the two million user mark. That number is even more impressive when you realize that every one of those users is a paying customer. With US$50 a year coming from each of those people, and even more if they pay monthly, Microsoft is seeing a good chunk of change from their online business. 

While other game systems have online play and the PC is still the best way to play online games, the XBox LIVE service offers a lot that the others don't. Since it's a centralized service you can keep a running buddy list and it's insanely easy to track down your friends across even different games and play with them. Every game is required to support full voice chat and Xbox LIVE headsets are getting more affordable and a few different models now exist. There's also the fact of downloadable content, which keeps games from getting old. While some titles use each of these features better than others someone with a large Xbox game collection is going to find that they get a lot of use out of the service, especially if they have many Xbox LIVE playing friends. In other words, Microsoft may have been the first to come out with a pay for play online service that people enjoy enough to come back to.