Facebook Featured in Xbox's "It's More Fun Time" Commercials

Microsoft clearly understands that the platform element of Xbox is as much a selling point as its game titles: in just the first week of being live, 10% of Microsoft's Xbox Live subscribers connected their accounts to Facebook. The platform represents new online content (such as Netflix) and the ability to make console gaming more social and viral. Furthermore, the association with big brand names like Facebook, Netflix, and Pandora is an effective sales tool that is appealing to all console owners (whereas games and their audiences vary dramatically: Madden Football vs. Call of Duty vs. Little Big Planet).

So in Microsoft's most recent Xbox advertising campaign, the 'platform' is a major theme: "more games, more entertainment and more fun" and "plugin to the endless entertainment of Xbox Live".

10% of Xbox Live Users Connected with Facebook in First Week

Last night I posted that over 650 million downloads have occurred on the Playstation Store. Today, a related and significant milestone was achieved on Xbox Live: 2 million users used Microsoft's Facebook integration in the first week since its release. That represents 10% of the 20 million active Xbox Live users.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I believe this represents the collision of console gaming and social gaming (what we see on Facebook), where games: - Become inherently social both during and between game play (Facebook Connect is an example) - Feature in-game micro-payments (a greater percentage of those 650m downloads will shift to small, paid orders) - Live across platform (and I do not mean Xbox vs. PS3 vs. Wii: game play to some degree will exist between the game itself, site’s like Facebook and the community – via the online stores and Facebook Connect enabled micro-sites)

650,000,000 Downloads via Playstation Store; Facebook Connect Goes Live

Facebook and Zynga in particular have become the center pieces for micro-transactions, social gaming and in-game purchasing habits... so much so that the activity on Microsoft's Xbox Live and Playstation's Playstation Store are often overlooked.

Tied to the recent price break on the Playstation 3 system (which moved nearly 500,000 units in September - 2x their August number), they announced that 650 million pieces of content have been downloaded to date via the Playstation Store.

That is a very big number considering that: - there are 31 million registered Playstation Network accounts ... an average of 20+ downloads per user - the time online for the Playstation is significantly different than a Facebook user (and more costly) This was also announced before Playstation's Facebook Connect integration went live (November 16th).

Whether you believe that Farmville is the future of gaming, it is tough to argue that it doesn't represent key elements of what traditional gaming has and will become:

- Inherently social both during and between game play (Facebook Connect is an example) - Featuring in-game micro-payments (a greater percentage of those 650m downloads will shift to small, paid orders) - Cross platform (and I do not mean Xbox vs. PS3 vs. Wii: game play to some degree will exist between the game itself, site's like Facebook and the community - via the online stores and Facebook Connect enabled micro-sites)