Xbox Live Stays Ahead of the Game

Microsoft’s Xbox Live has likely broken the $1 billion revenue mark for the first time in the year ended June 30. Microsoft says that roughly half of the service’s 25 million users paid an annual fee to play online games like Activision Blizzard’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” but that also for the first time, movie and TV download sales topped subscription revenue. Through recent content deals with ESPN and Activision Blizzard, the software giant projects that it can increase revenue by up to an additional 20 percent a year.