Major Nelson decided to post some interesting stats related to Xbox Live! and the New Xbox Experience.

If LIVE were a U.S. city, it would be the largest city with over 14-million members. The equivalent of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago combined.

Since the New Xbox Experience launched on Nov. 19 the number of new friends added per Xbox LIVE member has risen by 33%.

Xbox LIVE is not just games: With more than 45 global network and studio partners, and Netflix in the U.S., we offer more than 30,000 movies, TV episodes and music videos in both high and standard definition.

In the past year the average number of unique visitors to Xbox LIVE each day has risen 66%

Movie downloads increased 49% and TV episode downloads were up 30% the week after launch

Xbox LIVE Arcade sales almost tripled in the first week after the New Xbox Experience launched

Avatar-specific titles like A Kingdom for Keflings registered the second-best first week of performance ever

UNO which was updated to include in-game Avatars, saw a 650% increase in sales in just one day

It’s safe to say that the NXE had a positive effect on the Xbox 360.

Japanese Xbox Live! Gold members were given a special treat today in the form of an exclusive demo. It was the demo of Capcom’s Resident Evil 5 and guess what? Anyone can play this demo without the hassle of creating a Japanese Gold account.

Just follow these easy steps courteousy of the kind folks of NeoGAF.

1. Go here and download all five parts.
2. Extract the “Content” folder from the RAR files.
3. Burn the “Content” folder on a CD.
4. Insert that disc into your Xbox 360. It will show up as “Mixed Media”.
5. Navigate to “My Xbox” -> “Demos”
6. Enjoy!

There will be impressions from yours truly.

Although it was available much earlier, I decided to wait til today to update my Xbox 360 with the New Xbox Experience. I’ve got to say, this NXE interface is incredibly slick. I created my avatar, fiddled around with the menu interface and installed Gears of War 2. Then I decided to sit down and share some of my thoughts on my Microsoft’s big revamp.

The download and installation was quick and painless. I thought it was going to be a 20 minute ordeal, but it was actually much less. The introduction movie encapsulated the feel of the NXE perfectly; it’s slick, it’s modern and it’s not something your mum would shut off within 10 seconds of looking at it.

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I thought nothing of it when my brother reported that he was disconnected from Xbox Live! last night. Til now, we haven’t been able to connect onto the Live! service. Major Nelson reported that there were indeed problems last night, but it looks like these problems have cropped up once again. We’ve spent the entire day offline and that gets pretty annoying when you have to wait for your account to sign in.

If we’re having problems now, I wonder if shit will hit the fan on the 19^th. That’s when the NXE update will hit.

So the New Xbox Experience update was leaked and it’s not an early build. It’s the real deal which is why Microsoft will prevent any unauthorized Xbox 360 from connecting onto Xbox Live! until the official launch date of November 19th.

I have the file here and I’m contemplating whether or not to go ahead with the install. I would love to play Fable 2 and Fallout 3 with hard drive installs, but even with just a silver account, it’s nice to be able to download updates and the like.

Decisions, decisions.

Got game development skills? Want to make a profit using those skills? With XNA and the Xbox Live! Community Games initiative, amateur devs can start raking in the cash with the games they create and put up for Xbox 360 owners all over the world to try.

Microsoft is pushing hard for smaller developers to come onboard with incentives like:

• A cut of up to 70% of the total revenue (minus promotional fees if Microsoft chooses to promote your game)
• The ability to slap on any price tag (200 MS points to 800 MS points) AKA ($2.50 to $10) 

Sounds very nice from my little summary, but I’m sure it’s not all smiles and puppy dogs. Read the 1UP article for more details.