The Xbox 360 is just a games console... or is it? According to Microsoft marketing staff speaking with the LA Times, more American customers are using the machine to consume media than play video games online.
The report says American Xbox-owning households spend around 84 hours monthly on Xbox Live, compared to 150 on regular TV-- a 30% Y-o-Y increase. More importantly, "just over half that time is spent on videos and music."
If this is the case, then Microsoft's "Trojan horse" strategy to take over living rooms appears to be working. Globally Microsoft currently has around 20M Xbox Live Gold customers (out of a total of 66M Xbox 360s) paying monthly subscriptions to access a variety of non-gaming entertainment services.
Of course, American customers have a greater variety of entertainment options than Europeans-- the US Xbox 360 connects to 36 different services, including Netflix, ESPN, Hulu, Vudu, Youtube and HBO go. European users can access content from the BBC (UK), Telefonica (Spain), ZDF (Germany) and MediaSet (Italy).
Go Xbox Now Used More for Online Entertainment Than Online Gaming (LA Times)