When it comes to Xbox, the X could probably stand for NetfliX

YouTube and other video apps also make up a significant portion of Xbox usage

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Back when Microsoft first unveiled the Xbox One in May of 2013, the company took a lot of flak for focusing on TV and other media streaming uses for the box instead of talking primarily about games. An in-depth Ars Technica analysis of Xbox Live users, though, shows just how much time Xbox owners are spending watching video on their consoles, potentially explaining why Microsoft thought video was so important out of the gate.
Netflix is by far the most-used individual app in the Xbox ecosystem, according to our data, making up about 19 percent of all usage time we could measure across both the Xbox One and Xbox 360 during our September 2016 through February 2017 sampling period (read the introductory piece for details and caveats about our data collection methods). YouTube is also a favorite for Xbox owners, representing a further 7.6 percent of all usage. All told, these two apps account for more than a quarter of all the Xbox time we could measure.

The video-streaming usage is more pronounced on the Xbox 360, where Netflix and YouTube combine to make up nearly 48 percent of all console time. Other non-game apps, which are overwhelmingly streaming-video services, take up an additional 12.5 percent of Xbox 360 time in our sample. This suggests a lot of users are repurposing the aging hardware for use primarily as a streaming box, perhaps on a secondary TV.

Even on the current-gen Xbox One, though, Netflix and YouTube alone take up a significant 23.1 percent of all usage time, with 14.1 percent going to other non-gaming apps. These numbers are buoyed by an additional 6.6 percent of Xbox One time spent on the "TV" app, watching cable or satellite television through the Xbox One's HDMI input. That makes traditional TV watching more popular than any individual game, in our data, and might help explain why things like a Kinect-based TV controls and the OneGuide program listing were so important to Microsoft's initial pitch for the system.

Looking past Netflix and YouTube, no individual non-gaming app makes much of a solo impression on either console. Hulu and Amazon have their fair share of users, but their Xbox Live usage doesn't amount to much compared to the top two video juggernauts they’re competing with.

Diving a bit deeper into the app data, we find that about two percent of Xbox One users tried the system's built-in Microsoft Edge browser during the sample period, on top of about one percent that used Internet Explorer on the Xbox 360. Those aren't huge numbers, but they show that there's at least some value in the versatility of having a powerful Web browser plugged in to your TV.

Our full deep-dive into this Xbox Live data has a lot more information on what apps are getting used on Xbox consoles and what games people are playing on the systems, too. Check it out!