Gamers are overwhelmingly motivated by social competition. Building from this insight, we created a strategic platform–the Xbox Live 'Arena' — which redefined us as an environment, rather than hardware.Having expert players involved and engaged at launch was critical to building excitement for the product, which brought competitors from all over the world to the virtual Arena.

Two months pre-launch, we kicked off a beta Arena just for 'super-competitors.' Infiltrating online communities, we offered bragging rights to 20,000 influential gamers – the rare opportunity to experience Xbox Live first, influence the service development, and viral tools to spread the word.

Within six weeks, we had 130,000 gamers vying for the 20,000 Beta spots.

We surveyed the applicants twice each to find the most vocal and influential for invitation into our Arena beta–three-quarters signed up and paid US$49.95 within 36 hours.At launch, we shattered expectations when Xbox Live achieved the year-end goal in a single weekend. By the end of Holiday 2002 we had sold 280,000 kits – surpassing the goal by 180%.The Arena concept is being fully embraced through service enhancements including spectator viewing, chat rooms, product sponsorships, player rankings and league and tournament creation.