Earlier this month, Microsoft launched a political forum on Xbox Live, allowing users to cast their vote in a poll over the service via a Gamerpic download. Today, Microsoft revealed the results of the poll:
CNN… Gallup…NBC…Xbox LIVE?
In one of the nation’s largest unofficial election polls, Senator Barack Obama leads the vote by a 12 percent margin, while 26 percent voted “undecided” or “other.” These results do not map to national trends, which show Senator Obama and Senator McCain to be pacing neck and neck, and provide insight into a unique subset of young engaged citizens. According to the results from Xbox LIVE’s poll, when it comes to deciding who should be the next President, the jury is still out for many.
Nearly 100,000 LIVE Americans turned out to cast their “votes” in a poll over Xbox LIVE, making it larger than the combined samples from individual Gallup, NBC, and CNN polls. Part of an initiative to help register new voters for this year’s election, Xbox LIVE has partnered with Rock the Vote, turning the Xbox 360 into an unexpected political forum. Results from the first-ever poll over Xbox LIVE indicate the following:
In its first two weeks of the program, more than 55,000 voter registration forms were downloaded through Xbox LIVE and xbox.com. Additionally, videos from the recent Democratic and Republican conventions were downloaded nearly 25,000 times.
To-date, the Xbox LIVE community has downloaded more than 350,000 pieces of program-specific content, ranging from candidate gamerpics* to videos and Rock the Vote logos. That’s nearly five times the amount of people present at Barack Obama’s acceptance speech during the Democratic Convention in Denver.
