XBLA By The Numbers [Update]

Yesterday, at GameFest 2007, Marc Whitten (General Manager for Casual Games) made some bold predictions about the future of XBLA. Or are they? Maybe not. Predictions below:

#1 -- 45 million downloads by the end of 2007

#2 -- More than 100 XBLA games by the end of 2007

#3 -- XBLA revenue to double in the next fiscal year

Besides those predictions he also revealed that XBLA games have an average financial return of 156% after 12 months on the service and that XBLA has raked in over $30 million.

Analysis and discussion after the break.

[via Gamasutra]

Let's break down these predictions one at a time.

First -- 45 million downloads

By looking at the previous download annoucnements we can get a look at how XBLA has progressed and whether it can reach 45 million by December 31, 2007.

• 8 million (August 31, 2006) -- 28 XBLA games -- 9 months post-launch
• 20 million (January 30, 2007) -- 43 XBLA games -- 14 months post-launch
• 25 million (March 6, 2007) -- 46 XBLA games -- 15 1/2 months post-launch
• ? million (August 15, 2007) -- 79 XBLA games -- 21 months post-launch

They added about 12 million downloads from September through January last year with only 43 games out on the service. Thus, you could easily make a case for 20 million downloads before the end of the year if they reach their goal of 100 games before the end of the year. Theoretically, the games arriving this year will be better than last year and there will be more than double the number last year, so 50 million by the end of the year even seems possible.

Second -- More than 100 games by the end of 2007

We stand at 80 games as of today on the service which necessitates the addition of 20 games by the end of the year. We have 19 Wednesdays in that time frame so I would hope we'd have 100 by then.

Third -- XBLA revenue to double in the next fiscal year

Again, this seems like simple math. If the number of games available on the service gets close to doubling in this fiscal year, then anything less than a doubling in revenue would be a massive disappointment.

So, all in all, it looks like Whitten's predictions are pretty tame. What isn't so tame is the fact that XBLA is providing a 156% return on investment. That is huge and must be a large driver for developers and publishers to put games on the service. It also indicates that risks can be taken and can be profitable.

[Update]: corrected number of games already out per comment