Microsoft has announced that there are now 6 million people subscribed to its Xbox Live service. This milestone has arrived four months ahead of schedule, with Microsoft originally aiming to hit 6 million by June this year. Since its launch in 2002, Xbox Live has now notched up a respectable 2.3 billion hours worth of network play between gamers - the equivalent of 260,000 years - with Halo 2 accounting for 710 million of those. More than 70% of Xbox Live users are actively using the market place to download new content, as Microsoft strives to encourage more people online. Xbox Live remains the most successful online service for a console, and represents the changing attitude of gamers as they become more and more accustomed to online gameplay. One interesting thing to note is that Microsoft does not give figures for the number of Gold and Silver members separately - the Silver membership is free but noticeably scaled down, without online gameplay.