A LinkedIn profile page for Praveen Rutnam, group product planner at Microsoft, has outed the publisher’s plan to roll out a new strategy for generating revenue through Xbox Live starting this a holiday season. The experience section of Rutnam’s profile explicitly states that he created a “strategy to further monetize [the] Xbox LIVE subscriber base.” It mentions this holiday season as the target date for the new monetization efforts to go into effect.

Although no specific details as to what the strategy will entail are laid out in the listing, Joystiq has gone ahead and done some speculating. One possibility is the implementation of an online pass of some sort, not unlike those utilized by publishers EA, Ubisoft, THQ, Sony and Warner. The publishing houses using them have seen a strong backlash from gamers over online passes, but the consumer resistance has done little to stop their growing ubiquity.

Joystiq also suggests that Microsoft could be planning to do away with Microsoft Points and instead permit gamers to buy digital content directly with their credit cards, much as rival console-maker Sony does. While that’s mostly just speculation on their part, it was rumored to be happening a few months back before being subsequently shot down. Some consumers still grumble about the proprietary points system that adds an extra step to the purchase process and has led to many Xbox owners getting permanently stuck with extra points.

Other avenues Microsoft might end up heading down include adding additional premium pay streaming services to Xbox Live, different Xbox Live subscription packages or free-to-play titles, to name just a few. Michael Wolf, Microsoft’s global marketing manager for XBLA, stated in February that the publisher would consider allowing “freemium” titles on its platform if they had “content that makes sense for [it].”

Sources: @supererogatory and Joystiq