Ever had the infamous ’Ring of Death’? Statistically, something like one in three Xboxes get it. Chances are when Microsoftsend you back your Xbox they’ll include a one month free subscription to Xbox Live. Its not clear if everyone who gets the RROD gets a free month on Xbox Live, but I’m fairly certain everyone who has a Gold membership on Live gets a card (when I got my Xbox replaced I was asked if I was on Live).
So doing the maths, there are roughly 9.5 million Xbox Live Gold members. One third of them will have got the RROD, so 9,500,000 x 1/3 = 3.167 million. Thats 3.167 million people who have been given a month free on Xbox Live. Times that by the eight dollars it costs to buy a one month Xbox Live Gold card and it comes to 25,333,333.
What that means is Microsoft given away at least 25.3 million dollars worth of Xbox Live Gold membership cards since 2005. The figure could well be two, three or four times more. With no official figures it is hard to say.
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