MS cagey over Live downtime

By Robert Purchese Published 3 January, 2008

Statement today.

Microsoft has told Eurogamer that an official response to Xbox Live's poor festive performance is expected as soon as today.

Accusations over problems when signing in, recovering Gamertags and setting up games with friends have been rife, prompting Live community bigwig Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb to publicly reassure customers during the Christmas holidays.

"You may have noticed that the Live service has been having a few issues over the past few days," began Larry Hryb on his blog. "This includes things like signing in, matchmaking and account recovery. Not everyone has had problems, but I know some of you have and I wanted to give you and update."

"While the service was never completely offline, problems like this are not acceptable. The entire Live team has been working day and night to ensure that you can have a great Live experience."

Understandably, however, lots still feel hard done by, resulting in increased speculation that Microsoft plans to compensate Live Gold subscribers for their woes. Expect knitted socks and shower gel.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (158) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • t-bizzle #1 4 years ago

    "give you AN update".

    :)

  • oakie007 #2 4 years ago

    Compo is on the way...............mmmm I'll believe it when I see it

  • Greasemonkey #3 4 years ago

    I like the way he says "it was never complete offline", maybe it wasnt but it was still impossible for me to play over live these arseoles get to sound more like politicians everyday.

  • Lutz #4 4 years ago

    Can I have the knitted socks option please?

  • seasidebaz #5 4 years ago

    yep, they're going to increase the x360 warranty by another 2 years as compensation. rrod ftw!

  • CannonAnBall #6 4 years ago

    Well, from my point of view I was looking forward to escaping for a good few hours a day to have a real blitz on COD4 while I was off, so I was a little gutted about the problems. Even a couple of nights ago, the problems made my 360 freeze on 3 occasions.

    Have not had this 'heavy' downtime ever, so it must have been a major problem or something.

  • NickNack #7 4 years ago

    It was a damn joke and gold members need free stuff to make it better...

  • sabreman #8 4 years ago

    Not sure it is fully fixed as I was still having some problems with Call of Duty 4 last night. At the end of each game the lobby closed - taking a lot longer to match a game and some of the blades on the dashboard hanging for some time before displaying info.

  • lennon #9 4 years ago

    I was still having problems with this last night.

  • Raz76 #10 4 years ago

    Maybe they will make silver subscribers wait two weeks for demos.

  • DrDamn #11 4 years ago

    Seems to depend on what time you manage to sign in and what you try and do after that. Was signed in early yesterday (5:30pm-ish). Was "ok" until about 8 or 9 pm and then issues started when ever using blades to invite people to games etc. Basically when the peak US time starts to kick in then it starts having problems.

  • barnard666 #12 4 years ago

    hanging dashboard is reallyannoying...I dont want to playonline, I just want to play acecombat...but I have to sit there and watch the little waiting circle for up to a minute...whats it doing? I rekon its downloading advertising...

  • bad09 #13 4 years ago

    Well it's still playing up a little but to be honest I haven't been as bothered as some. Reading posts on the Xbox forums, the way some people have been whining about it you would think they needed Live to breath! A bit of compensation would be nice though as it has been a week!

    MS are a bit sensitive about the issue, some posts on the official website have been removed!!
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 10:18

  • Madder-Max #14 4 years ago

    "You may have noticed that the Live service has been having a few issues over the past few days," began Larry Hryb on his blog. "This includes things like signing in, matchmaking and account recovery. Not everyone has had problems, but I know some of you have and I wanted to give you and update."


    LOL! Thats funny. Fixed below:


    "You may have noticed that the Live service has been pretty much borked over the past few days because so many people actually tried to use the service over the Xmas period and we cant be arsed to pay to upgrade the outdated servers due to the fact that console ownwers are a lower form of life in Microsofts view," began Larry Hryb on his blog. "Problems include things like not being able to play console games. Everyone has had problems, but i dont really give a shit and we will all have a laugh when we offer total XBLA shite as compo"

    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 10:23

  • Uncle_Fishboy #15 4 years ago

    I was trying to matchmake on Halo3 on new years eve and my xbox bleeped briefly then froze. On turning it back on I had the red ring of death. So you could say that the recently slightly rubbish live service has murderalised my box. Probably not true but the lingering suspicion will always remain in my brain.

  • Bealsy #16 4 years ago

    Who's guessing on a free copy of Billiards and some Kameo gamerpics? lol

  • MBar #17 4 years ago

    Oooooooooooooooooooh, that's what that was. It was taking ages to sign-in to my Live-enabled account just to play Guitar Hero offline.

    Gold subscriber here. Gief st00f!!!

  • Hughes. #18 4 years ago

    Raz76 wins the thread.

  • rhinoxious #19 4 years ago

    Spoiled a planned evening of COD4 for me, which is simply unacceptable.

  • pyrat6 #20 4 years ago

    @Madder Max

    A fine translataion of the corporate nonsense spouted by 'major nelson'.

    It's funny reading the comments on his blog. 29 December, people are posting sycophantic thank yous. By 2nd January people are waiting for the local school to open so they can run amock with a rifle to vent their rage.

    Anyway. I went and bought a PS3 as a protest. It's not much - but I feel at times like this it's important to be a good little consumer. It's important to suck up second rate service and pay more money.

  • BadBoyBonner #21 4 years ago

    Thank the Lord for getting Mario Galaxy as an Xmas pressie!

  • oreillymj #22 4 years ago

    I'm guessing that the compo will be "hardcore"
    Probably a voucher for a fiver off Halo3.

  • miiiguel #23 4 years ago

    I also noticed, everything slows down (big time!), around 23:00-01:00 GMT, which I think it early evening in US, when all those americans log in.
    I wish Live wasn't present in every single suburban house in USA.

  • Dizzy #24 4 years ago

    2 million new players joined Live during the XMas period. The service was hammered hard. Welcome to the real world, where having shitloads of customers on your network is hard to scale and maintain (victim of you own success)?. It is not like WoW never has/had server problems. :)

  • BadBoyBonner #25 4 years ago

    To be honest the service seems to have been intermittently struggling ever since CoD 4 came out as opposed to the last couple of days.

    Seems MS's estimation of bandwidth consumption are about as good as their hardware MTBF calculations.

  • Moz #26 4 years ago

    barnard666 "hanging dashboard is reallyannoying...I dont want to playonline, I just want to play acecombat...but I have to sit there and watch the little waiting circle for up to a minute...whats it doing? I rekon its downloading advertising..."

    If you go right a couple of blade (think it the games blade) it doesn't have any live content so the blade is displayed straight away and has the play game thing at the bottom.

  • miiiguel #27 4 years ago

    Any blade, but the first two on the left, I think.

  • Max_Powers #28 4 years ago

    "Not sure it is fully fixed as I was still having some problems with Call of Duty 4 last night. At the end of each game the lobby closed - taking a lot longer to match a game and some of the blades on the dashboard hanging for some time before displaying info. "

    I had the exact same problem yesterday evening. Very annoying. And going on for days now!

  • mazzl #29 4 years ago

    tip: unplug you're xbox (from the inet). if you don't want to play online. after that, things should work as "normal" ;)

  • WiseNail #30 4 years ago

    I've been disconnected from Halo matches a few times just as they start. I've then lost an exp point from my ranking as an extra reward, as they're assuming I've quit the match early.

  • NickNack #31 4 years ago

    Dizzy you sound like a tool of MS. How can you defend them against this?. People had a few days off and the servers went into meltdown. If I couldn't fix this problem in a week at my job I would be fired. Heads need to roll over this shit.

  • tonynibbles #32 4 years ago

    you're xbox?

    As in: you are an xbox?

  • Carlo #33 4 years ago

    So much for a paid service being 'better'.

  • rashes #34 4 years ago

    @miiiguel

    Yeah... my brother and I were playing all day yesterday and then at around 10:30 GMT we started getting the problems setting up a game, hanging dashboard, etc.

    Alot of these problems have started since the X-box updaye before xmas.

  • Madder-Max #35 4 years ago

    "2 million new players joined Live during the XMas period. The service was hammered hard. Welcome to the real world, where having shitloads of customers on your network is hard to scale and maintain (victim of you own success)?. It is not like WoW never has/had server problems. :) "

    Riiiight. Never heard of forecasting? Market data, due dilligence? Budgeting etc..... This is MS ffs! Idont want to hear that the Xbox Live dept wasnt budgeted etc blah blah. Its Microsoft...

    The reality may be that it runs on servers which are close to end of lifecycle and prolly look like buses without wheels.
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 11:04

  • DrDamn #36 4 years ago

    The blade which works on start-up is the "Media" blade. Cos that's intuitive when you want to play games on a games machine. Like when you want to play a downloaded title. Simple, boot-up, slide across a blade to "Games", select "Games Library", Select appropriate tab, wait 20 seconds for the XBox to list a directory, then scroll down to the game you want to play and select, then chose play!

  • JohnnyWashnGo #37 4 years ago

    See this is why I stick to solo games because you can never be disappointed when you play with yourself.

    All this online gaming is fine and dandy when all pieces of the infrastructure are in sound, working order.

    But as soon as you console RRODs, your wireless lan rolls over and dies, your ISP demonstrates its skill at being unreliable and disconnects you for hours or the Live service has a major coronary, you find that the lovely online experience is kinda lacking.

  • DrDamn #38 4 years ago

    @JohnnyWashnGo
    "because you can never be disappointed when you play with yourself."

    Snicker, fnarr, guffaw, titter etc ...

  • Dizzy #39 4 years ago

    "Dizzy you sound like a tool of MS. How can you defend them against this?. People had a few days off and the servers went into meltdown. If I couldn't fix this problem in a week at my job I would be fired. Heads need to roll over this shit. "

    Not a tool... just somebody with real life experience and a pragmatic view on things.

    You never played World of Warcraft have you?

    Your servers don't have 8 million people hammering them. People need to get a sense of reality. When something doesn't work Internet emo boys moan like little girls. SADLY this kind of stuff doesn't always work as advertised. No use being emo about it... it will be fixed.

    "The reality may be that it runs on servers which are close to end of lifecycle and prolly look like buses without wheels. "

    Haa.. yes... if you ever get a job managing big servers farms you will know the problems. I am a software guy but I have worked on many projects for big companies with gigantic budgets for servers. And, in the end, they ALWAYS have problems when traffic increases in a big burst.

    "See this is why I stick to solo games because you can never be disappointed when you play with yourself. "

    :) That would make an awesome sig ;)
    Edited by 4 at 03/01/08 @ 11:18

  • miiiguel #40 4 years ago

    "you find that the lovely online experience is kinda lacking."
    I'm not that dramatic (yet). I had > 50 weeks of flawless, and very good service (and I use Live mostly to socialize, rather then run-n-gun). I can't see myself playing in a disconnected device anymore. Live set, indeed, a new standard.

  • septimus #41 4 years ago

    Seems to be working a lot better over the past couple of days for me, signing in and messaging etc. Though reliable multiplayer is still not there.

  • DrDamn #42 4 years ago

    @Dizzy
    Sure you expect problems. Shit happens. What you don't expect is several weeks of problems - which is how long this has been going on - with no real acknowledgement or official response from a company the size of Microsoft.

  • login_name #43 4 years ago

    @Dizzy

    If people pay for a service, a service that is constantly championed, then they have a right to be annoyed when it doesn't work at one of the few times they have enough free time to actually enjoy it.

    I would probably be a little ticked off too, if it wasn't for the fact my machine died just before Christmas and was still at Microsoft while all this was happening.

    Like someone else said, thank God for Mario Galaxy and maybe a little TF2 also ;) .

  • krudster #44 4 years ago

    Xbox Live point blank refuses to recover my gamertag, which means I can't even use the sodding machine right now. Nice one MS.

  • miiiguel #45 4 years ago

    ""The reality may be that it runs on servers which are close to end of lifecycle and prolly look like buses without wheels. "

    The storage array in "my" Datacenter looks exactly like that, and we bought it last month, and it costed twice the price of my flat.

    Then again I do work in a big datacenter, and shit happens. Although, as long as it's not "downtime" we can get away with it (for a while).

    p.s.: since I went multi-360, I realised that GT recovery sucks. It's better to have one's profile in an MU.
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 11:33

  • jlaakso #46 4 years ago

    I've noticed some issues, yes, but I haven't been even a little bit annoyed at them, despite playing mostly online. This is the online world, people: expect hiccups from time to time.

    Think back to the time before broadband (if you're that old - if not, well, I guess you're spoiled then). We all paid outrageous (outrageous!) sums for modem access, which was painfully slow and very unreliable *all the time*. Now we have considerably cheaper services which work very well *most of the time*. I think that's a huge improvement in a few short years.

    If I couldn't access Live at all for more than a couple of days, yeah, that would suck. (Never happened!) But you can have actual *internet outage* for a couple of days - not merely Live - before the ISP has to compensate you (according to Finnish standards).

  • bad09 #47 4 years ago

    @DrDamn
    " Sure you expect problems. Shit happens. What you don't expect is several weeks of problems - which is how long this has been going on - with no real acknowledgement or official response from a company the size of Microsoft."

    Several weeks???? check with you ISP mate you have problems! Live has only had severe problems over the last week or so.

    Am I and Dizzy the only people who understands that technology fails from time to time? It's a pain and fustrating but it happens and we just have to deal with it. I can't believe some people are actually thinking this is not a very big deal for MS and they don't care about fixing it!

    99% of the time it works perfectly. Instead of getting annoyed while it's down go do something else, there is life after live.....

  • Dizzy #48 4 years ago

    "with no real acknowledgement or official response from a company the size of Microsoft. "

    True... companies should be much quicker to inform people of problems.

    Major Nelson tried though.

  • zedzee #49 4 years ago

    Microsoft should put their hands in their pockets and buy some decent Cisco switches and stop taking handouts of crappy ones from the likes of Dell and HP.

  • BadBoyBonner #50 4 years ago

    Why do people constantly defend Live when it is clearly knackered?

    Lets change the analogy to cars.

    Poster one: I just bought a car when there was a massive rush on as it was when the new reg came out and it's stalling every couple of days - I am feeling a bit miffed that I haven't got what I paid for.

    Poster Two: Hey I used to be involved in car making ya' know an' it's really hard especially when the new reg comes out - we made loads of em so of course half of em are going to be faulty, what do you expect - so stop moaning emo etc etc

    And the classic - until you make your own car ya self you aren't even qualified to be unhappy that what you bought is borked.

    EDIT: Or the other classic - Instead of getting annoyed while you car isn't working do something else like walk everywhere, there is movement after automobiles...

    /shakes head
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 11:43

  • miiiguel #51 4 years ago

    BadBoyBonner, bad analogy. Cars exist for more than a century. You don't patch cars. A car works by itself, it's not dependent of an ISP (or do you complain if there's too many cars on the road? - "give me my money back, I was in line for an hour!!!" - can I do that ?).
    If your ISP fails (it never failed ?), do whine like that ?

    edit:
    "Why do people constantly defend Live when it is clearly knackered?"
    Because it's been a very good service so far.
    Edited by 2 at 03/01/08 @ 11:46

  • bad09 #52 4 years ago

    @ BadBoyBonner

    Why do people constantly defend Live when it is clearly knackered?

    If people are like me they defend it because, apart from the recent issue, we have absolutely no problems at all with the service and it works fine.

  • Dizzy #53 4 years ago

    "Lets change the analogy to cars. "

    The analogy would be that your new car would break down once after 4-5 years. Live has been down only .1% of the time last few years.

    You know what.. my brand new Toyota Prius broke down after 1 year. My brand new windows in my house cracked during the XMas cold. Stop being so emo about all this shit.

  • BadBoyBonner #54 4 years ago

    A car works by itself?

    Whats you car Herbie? (could not resist).

    I will resolve it down to it's constituent components for you.

    If I pay for something, I expect the thing I pay for to work.

    If it does not work I feel that it is unsatisfactory.

    Which most would agree with.

    However certain people seem to suddenly think that any involvement they have had with technology in the past or present somehow imbues them with the ability to negate ill will towards MS and that anyone who dares to be unsatisfied is somehow technically illiterate and therefore should be ignored*.

    The "So what if it is broken, put up with it" is the kind of working class bravado that allowed and allows companies such as MS to get away with providing a shoddy service (at least to proponents of that maxim).

    * all people who qualify for the above should probably send their C.V. off to Criterion

  • miiiguel #55 4 years ago

    My VW had so many problems since I bought it (starting 1 month after acquiring it), that I'm kinda sad to even remember it. And they actually said (after beeing pushed a lot) "only people who manufacter it can understand these issues".

  • back2funk #56 4 years ago

    @Dizzy - It sounds to me that you are contempt with crap... you need to raise your voice a bit more and not put up with it.

    As far as your comments about this being the Norm in IT. Yes, problems do occur but this has gone on for too long. I work in IT and if any of the Applications or Servers for which my team are responsible for were out of action for over an hour, heads would roll!!

  • BadBoyBonner #57 4 years ago

    If people are like me they defend it because, apart from the recent issue, we have absolutely no problems at all with the service and it works fine.

    edited

    If people are like me they defend it because, apart from the ongoing problems of it not working properly, we have absolutely no problems at all with the service and it works fine.

  • mattigan #58 4 years ago

    "Microsoft should put their hands in their pockets and buy some decent Cisco switches"

    Nah, they should go with Extreme Switches, better on every level, although what packet switching has to do with an XBL outage I don't know?!?.

    Telco class core switch configurations (which I'm sure is what they use) should be capable of servicing this level of traffic, I would have thought that the problem is more software based, i.e. it can't keep up with the increased demand.

    They need more hampsters!!

  • DrDamn #59 4 years ago

    @jlaakso
    Considering the problems seem to kick in when the US start logging on in the evening then maybe the extra couple of hours you are ahead minimise the impact for you?

    @bad09
    It's been since just before Christmas - that's "last couple of weeks" in my book. Some people link it back to the downloadable video launch.

    I understand technology fails, and partly the disappointment is that the general standard of the service up until this point has been very, very good. I have no doubt MS understand the severity of the issue and the impact this has on their reputation at such an important time means they are likely putting a lot of effort into fixing it. Part of the problem is that this is just an assumption though, complete lack of official communication means we don't actually know what the problem is and when it will be fixed. That is what is unacceptable given the time this has been going on. Without communication of what is going on, and due to the intermittent nature of the issue, it's easy to think it is resolved only to suffer another evening of crapness. If it is something which is not going to be fixed for a month then tell people, I'll happily do something else, just get some information out there because no info is doing more damage.

  • DrDamn #60 4 years ago

    @Dizzy
    "You know what.. my brand new Toyota Prius broke down after 1 year. My brand new windows in my house cracked during the XMas cold. Stop being so emo about all this shit."

    Presumably when you took the car back to Toyota they actually said something though eh?

  • miiiguel #61 4 years ago

    mattigan, if I could I would do some unapologetic comments on Extreme Networks service (cough, cough, 1 week to replace a dead blade in a next-buisness day contract...). In this particular case, we had a cripled service for a week, and for end-customer it was our fault - and we couldn't say it wasn't, realy.

    "work in IT and if any of the Applications or Servers for which my team are responsible for were out of action for over an hour, heads would roll!!"
    Here too, but there's more issues to consider. The service is not down, it's faulty but not down. And yes, here heads would roll too, but mr. CEO wouldn't advertise it, so we don't know.

    "Presumably when you took the car back to Toyota they actually said something though eh?"
    If you open a ticket in live.xbox.com, they will say something. I bet none of us did.
    Edited by 3 at 03/01/08 @ 12:05

  • back2funk #62 4 years ago

    @ Miiiguel - "The service in not down, it's faulty but not down"
    Good point, but even then a Priority 1 OR/CP would be raised and we'd all be camping out in the office untill it was fixed.

  • Dizzy #63 4 years ago

    "Good point, but even then a Priority 1 OR/CP would be raised and we'd all be camping out in the office until it was fixed. "

    Well that is what they are doing.

    BTW Live is "camped" 24/24 anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 12:07

  • BadBoyBonner #64 4 years ago

    Dizzy

    My brand new windows in my house cracked during the Xmas cold. Stop being so emo about all this sh*t

    I assume that as anyone can still see through cracked glass that you will be leaving them indefinitely as is, as my window outages have been even less than 0.1% over my 16 years of home ownership; taking any course of action that may result in the replacement of them would obviously be "emo".

    It wasn't Microsoft Windows Ltd who fitted them was it?

  • back2funk #65 4 years ago

    @Dizzy Priority 1? I think not.

  • miiiguel #66 4 years ago

    Dizzy, a 24/7 datacenter doesn't need engineers present all the time (shit!)..., unless there's a major problem.

    BBB, I'm glad you changed analogies, everyone had bad experiences with cars, they're no example...
    Edited by 2 at 03/01/08 @ 12:12

  • back2funk #67 4 years ago

    Exactly Miiiguel. Ours is 24/7 hence this damn on call phone of mine :(

  • SirClive #68 4 years ago

    Whats the fuss over a little bit of downtime? So I had to wait a little longer for the system to load and I couldn't play online for an hour or so. Thats life.

  • BadBoyBonner #69 4 years ago

    Miiguel

    You seemed to miss the point - I was not implying that cars are faultless - the point was cars inherently have faults - which you seem to agree with.

    And my submission was - would you accept cars have faults and never complain about it because at that time of year they make a lot of them?

    My guess would be no - and the fact of whether I own a car making plant, or am an automobile engineer - would have no bearing on whether you would accept that submission as a reasonable excuse for the faults on your car.


    And using the percentage argument is crazy.

    Take it back top the car analogy.

    If every single car Ford ever produced had performed flawlessly (unlikely) - but then over the Xmas period - every single Ford car bought to be used on the highway suddenly stopped working - because Fords on-line road navigational software stopped working - am I to accept the any garage mechanic should be able to say to me stop moaning about it as it has worked for 99.9% of the time.

    Pull the other one.
    Edited by 2 at 03/01/08 @ 12:42

  • bad09 #70 4 years ago

    @ DrDamn

    I think people saying it started with VD are incorrect truthfully, I think some people are using it as an excuse to knock Live. All those people who whine how it should be free etc. Around Christmas yes, (although I myself had no trouble until just before New Year) but that is only a week and a half, and judging from the scale of the problem and Major Nelsons comments there was no quick fix.

    I knew of the problems before I even turned on my 360, so we have had official communication and updates from Major Nelson on his site and on the official website who has been keeping people up to date (well telling people they are still working in it!). It won't a be month, the service is nearly back to normal and it's not like this happens all the time.

    Sorry if I sounded like I was ranting but I'm just getting annoyed with all the whiners who are acting like it's the end of the world. OK, it's not been working correctly over the Christmas period, shit happens so just be a little patient people and deal with it!

  • Freeman01 #71 4 years ago

    I don't know if anyone else has stated this but I've found that signing in has been alot slower since the last update, and has had nothing to do with Christmas.

    In saying that, you've probably got a load of people how got 360's for Christmas add this to the fact that its a holiday period and everyone wants to play!

  • miiiguel #72 4 years ago

    "And my submission was - would you accept cars have faults and never complain about it because at that time of year they make a lot of them? "

    Since you mention it I was going to do around 600km for the New Year's eve and tried to put my car in several VW garages 1 month prior, and every single one said they couldn't do the check up because they had too many people off.
    What I also mean is, I do develop a certain indulgence towards IT engineers this time of the year, as I took a 1 week and a half off, and I'd expect a similar behaviour from our end-users if we had any problem.

    And, did anyone actually complained ? Anyone of you ?
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 12:31

  • mattigan #73 4 years ago

    For a datacentre the size you say yours is, you should really have a spare on site, also the fault is not with Extreme per se, but rather with the company you use to supoprt them. (unless you go to Extreme direct - and then I stand corrected)

    My comment was a rebuke to someone saying they should buy Cisco and it would fix everything, a common missconception amongst our American friends, Extreme's flagship kit currently boasts 7 or 8 '9s' availability, which Cisco unfortunately can only dream of matching.

    All that said (on topic), MS should really have seen this coming if it indeed is a capacity issue, and head should roll.

  • nbnz #74 4 years ago

    @Dizzy
    "Live has been down only .1% of the time last few years. "

    Um, no. Live has been having severe problems since 22 December. Even if you only count 22-31 December, that's 9 days of 2007 which is 2.5%. Plus a few days of problems when COD4 came out, and when HALO3 came out, and when the Fall update came out. Plus the "scheduled" maintenance which is only announced after it's happened. Between all those I'd say minimum of 20 days of 2007 the pay in advance service has been practically unusable.

  • miiiguel #75 4 years ago

    "My comment was a rebuke to someone saying they should buy Cisco "
    We did exactly that, I'm browsing over a Catlyst guide as we speak.

  • Dizzy #76 4 years ago

    "Between all those I'd say minimum of 20 days of 2007 the pay in advance service has been practically unusable. "

    You are actually a sad person.

  • miiiguel #77 4 years ago

    "Live has been down only .1% of the time last few years. "

    Um..., yes. For me at least. Lucky me.

  • JediMasterMalik #78 4 years ago

    The reason people defend it is simple. They don't want to admit that they are paying for something they shouldn't.

  • miiiguel #79 4 years ago

    JMM, if you knew me you'd know that I realy don't care about money. This is not braging nor anything, it's an handicap really (som my mum says). So it's sure not that.

    Why it's hard for some to admit that some people can have fun and enjoy Live and stuff from evil (oh so evil) companies ?
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 12:43

  • DrDamn #80 4 years ago

    @bad09
    I'm a huge fan of Live and I'm happy to pay £40 a year for what it provides over other services. PSN while free still does not have the key integration Live has. (E.g. standardized messaging and friends access in all games). Until this point my experience has been very solid. I've got a PS3 and a 360 and games tend to get bought on for the 360 because of Live above most other considerations.

    I too don't think it is the video service causing the problem, but without proper comment beyond acknowledgement of an issue then its all speculation.

    @miiiguel
    I don't think we all need to individually complain to get information - when general press start reporting the problem (Sky for example) they need to make some sort of official statement. There are plenty of common channels available to them to pro-actively get info out. Games websites for example or even the newly added "latest news" thing on the dashboard.

  • BigE0n #81 4 years ago

    To Microsoft.......

    In the Imortal Words of Futurama's Phillip Jay Fry....

    "Fix it, Fix it, Fix it, FIX IT"

    That is all......

  • VicViper #82 4 years ago

    All these car examples are really helpful... hmmm I think I try an example of my own.

    Lets call the this example the internet service (crazy I know)

    sometimes stuff doesn't work correctly and its annoying but you have to deal with it, my ISP (virgin net) went down recently, I was not happy but it was fixed and things went on as normal, sometimes my net connection fails due to issues with my router but it gets fixed (Turn it off and on - standard IT support), sometimes web sites go down but most of the time they work, sometimes the internet is a load of crap that doesn't work but you know what most of the time it works.

    I got Live over a year and a half ago and as its a service that is (more or less) world wide sometimes the traffic will kill it (GTA 4 trailer), maintence or technical failure and even though compensation would be nice somewhere in the agreement I signed (and didn't read) when I joined up they probaly have a clause that says they don't have to and to expect times when this might happen, I figured that there would always be a chance for issues and so a week or two out of 70+ weeks is a good run considering how many faults internet services usually get.

    And I know to mention that there are single player games that work off line is the one of the arguments countered by the car example so I won't.

  • miiiguel #83 4 years ago

    "What this shows is that Live is NOT considered a core system"
    I shouldn't tell where I work, but I can assure it's a "core system". And only after 5 years of service we are implementing our alternate site (but just like Live we're the only service alike).
    Edited by 2 at 03/01/08 @ 12:54

  • bad09 #84 4 years ago

    @ JediMasterMalik

    I pay for it and I'm perfectly happy. I don't need to admit I'm paying for something I shouldn't because I, like many, many people, don't feel that in anyway and feel it's £30 a year (shop around for your subscription) well spent. If you feel different then that's fine just don't tell me I'm stupid for paying for a service I enjoy. My opinion is people are stupid and throwing money away by buying a PS3 but it's their money they can do what they want and if it makes them happy so be it.

  • mattigan #85 4 years ago

    I can recomend the Extreme BD8K very solid. The Cisco equivalet looked good on first impressions but further investigation revealed some 'creative marketing' on Cisco's part. In that, yes, their kit will do what they say it does, but only under very specific conditions, this is by and large my experience with Cisco kit in general. We recently trialled several vendors WAN acceleration products, and you would not beleive the hoops Cisco wanted us to jump through to get the 'best results' from their kit. While all the others where pretty much 'plug and play'.


    But hey, as the sales guy said "Nobody ever lost their job choosing Cisco"

  • miiiguel #86 4 years ago

    I could never, ever be an economist. 50 Eur/year means absolutly nothing to me. I can't use that issue to quit the service.

  • bad09 #87 4 years ago

    @ headbog

    You probably aren't with BT! With BT I had nearly 3 months of no connection....I got compensation for the time though and from the sounds of it MS will be giving something for the trouble over the past weeks. Job done.

  • DrDamn #88 4 years ago

    @headbog
    "You get Friends access in all PSN games too, and you get invitations to chat ad notifications in games to when sending them from XMB. But the point is what you are paying for in XBL is specifically the ability to play against others. You get the cross game invites, ability to receive and send messages in game, view freinds lists , achievements, and so forth with Silver - it's just the ability to join and play online games that you cant do for free. Most of the time that is peer to peer anyway. All the accounting, transaction processing, Demo and arcade title hosting is there for Silver members too."

    "Cross game invites" in Silver ... what use are they if you can't play?

    Seriously. I have both and Live is a massively superior service. I am happy to pay £40 a year to get it.

  • JediMasterMalik #89 4 years ago

    I simply cannot beleive people are happy paying for a P2P service, WITH advertisements, and can so easily forgive these unexplained downtimes. I don't see what it is in the Live service, that in itself requires a subscription. Regardless of the ability of other services to do the same things as Live does.

    If Gold users had dedicated servers, I'd understand, that and the removal of ads, but they don't, all they get is the ability to play online, which you get practically everywhere else for free, and demos a week earlier than non paying customers.

  • Madder-Max #90 4 years ago

    "BadBoyBonner, bad analogy. Cars exist for more than a century. You don't patch cars. A car works by itself, it's not dependent of an ISP (or do you complain if there's too many cars on the road? - "give me my money back, I was in line for an hour!!!" - can I do that ?).
    If your ISP fails (it never failed ?), do whine like that ? "

    cars do not work by themselves. they need fuel which is obtained from a service provider, or petrol station. the analogy is that if we all pre paid for fuel and then could not obtain any. I think this damages your patchy defense.

    cars are also used as taxi's and therefore the passenger is reliant on 2 service providers however indirectly. the driver and fuel infrastructure. if we had to pre pay an amount per month to use taxi's and then find that most of the taxis are broken or drivers cant get fuel because the subscription people pocketed the cash and could not be arsed to spend money preparing for a major event or major influx of people to a location (who have prepaid access to taxi services)....like um....Xmas for example, then there would quite rightly be chaos and i think this destroys your rather patchy defense.

  • DrDamn #91 4 years ago

    You have to look at the overall business model to understand why you pay and what, in truth. you pay for. Silver may have a lot of the features but it is the free sweetener to get people in to Gold. Put simply if Gold was not a paid for service then a lot of the standard features available in Silver would not be there either.

  • bad09 #92 4 years ago

    @ JediMasterMalik

    You pay for MS to match you with players similar to yourself. That's why we have family, recreation, pro and underground zones. Personally I had terrible PC online experience playing with people who take games far to seriously and don't do it for fun they do it to win. I'm a bit more laid back then that so I want to play with like minded people. I go for the recreation zone and (with a few exceptions!) everyone is friendly and just wanna play for fun!

    THAT is what you pay for and that alone to me is worth the money!
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 13:22

  • NthSimulachum #93 4 years ago

    People might be happy to pay for it, since there are actually quite a few good games you can play on it.

    Zing.

  • Moz #94 4 years ago

    "You have to look at the overall business model to understand why you pay and what, in truth. you pay for. Silver may have a lot of the features but it is the free sweetener to get people in to Gold. Put simply if Gold was not a paid for service then a lot of the standard features available in Silver would not be there either."

    Which is a fair point and the only way round of doing it, if they are planning on charging. But the result then is that Gold members are then funding the silver memberships, rather then really getting anything for their money as playing games online is free on other systems

  • nbnz #95 4 years ago

    @dizzy
    "You are actually a sad person."

    Really? I'm sad cause I expect a service that I pay for to work?
    You know what is really sad is that you are defending Microsoft for something which is completely unacceptable. You're just too blind to see it.
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 13:28

  • pyrat6 #96 4 years ago

    "If you have a datacentre of any significance, especially with billing and user data stored therein, you have a backup site on standby to switch over to should there be a disster. "

    It depends entirely on the purpose of the datacentre, and the probability/impact risk assesment.

    Lets be honest Live is for games, MS aren't going to lose millions if it's down. There share price isn't going to be affected. They are in a strong position partly because it's also a monopoly. You can't go connecting your xbox to another service.

    The only way to vote with your feet is to buy another console. I think MS can be fairly confident that even if it's completely down people aren't that pissed off.

    MS 1 Users 0 ... forever :)

  • NickNack #97 4 years ago

    Dizzy is just a puppet for big corporations. He will gladly bend over for you and defend you to his dying day if you have loads of money and a nice suit.

    Wanker

  • OldK1ngCole #98 4 years ago

    I had this problem for the whole Christmas holiday, from early evening on Christmas day. Log in to Xbox Live, friends who are online show at the bottom of the screen, then it logs me out. Also had the problem of blades hanging. As of last night this was still ongoing.

    TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE IMO!!!
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 13:34

  • DrDamn #99 4 years ago

    @Moz
    "But the result then is that Gold members are then funding the silver memberships, rather then really getting anything for their money as playing games online is free on other systems"

    You are not funding the silver memberships, you are funding the features. They make the key feature (online gaming) paid for, but essentially you are funding all the features.

    Couple of examples of key features you don't get with PSN (yet).

    As the chat system is separate you can set up a chat channel with just the friend you are playing with in a larger game. Useful for ignoring other chatter. You can even set up a chat channel as you both play through separate games.

    You can set voice in any game to be just peopl on your friends list.

    You can send someone a message and they can read it whatever game they are playing.

    All the stuff is standard - what ever game you are playing.
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 13:43

  • JediMasterMalik #100 4 years ago

    What you're saying makes little sense though, does matchmaking actually cost MS money everytime you use it? Does chat cost MS money everytime you use it? P2P play? Any other feature of Gold usage? I don't think it does, and therefore doesn't justify a subscription.

  • Moz #101 4 years ago

    @DrDamn,

    I guess though I still don't think it's worth the money, the only reason I pay for gold is because there are games only on 360 that i want to play online, which is the true reason they charge for it, because they can. Which is what i've to expect from MS generally (not just in consoles). Which is why MS have too big a share in the console market would be a bad thing as they will rise prices as high as they can once they have a dominent possition.

    You think the PS3 was over priced at launch, we've not seen nothing yet!

  • DrDamn #102 4 years ago

    Its just the chosen business model though. Do you think Sony provide all the PSN features from the goodness of their heart? No - it gets paid for somehow.

    Key point. The online stuff on the 360 is paid for, the online stuff on the PS3 is not. The one which is paid for is better than the other (usually - heh). I think there is a bit of a connection there no?

  • JediMasterMalik #103 4 years ago

    Of course sony don't provide it out of the goodness of their heart, all the money they get as SCEE will have a proportion of it sent to RnD, but the point is, I'm not paying directly for it am I? And I therefore have a lower expectation of what I am receiving for my money. If I was paying directly for it, then there would be a big problem with my view of the service. As it is, it's a decent service which requires a lot of improvement.

  • bad09 #104 4 years ago

    @ JediMasterMalik

    "What you're saying makes little sense though, does matchmaking actually cost MS money everytime you use it? Does chat cost MS money everytime you use it? P2P play? Any other feature of Gold usage? I don't think it does, and therefore doesn't justify a subscription."

    That make no sense at all! Do you not think it cost them to set up all the servers for matchmaking? Or to maintain them? WE ARE PAYING TO USE THEIR SERVERS. As I said before you don't think it's worth fine, we do so deal with it, does it really upset you so much what other people spend their money on!

  • DrDamn #105 4 years ago

    And I'd rather pay if it meant I got a service comparable to Live.

  • JediMasterMalik #106 4 years ago

    I don't know how matchmaking works, I thought that was game dependant, if that's true, how can it be justified by the cost of Live? If I'm wrong just correct me.

  • bad09 #107 4 years ago

    @JediMasterMalik

    No it's not game dependent that's why we have the separate zones. we all get split into the zones we chose on our profile and we play with people from that zone.

  • mkreku #108 4 years ago

    Haha, miiiguel is starting to sound like the MS-Apologie in this thread :)

    "No no, I am sure the downtime was planned! It's because Live is going to be even better in the future!! I am happy to spend money on a service that's not better than the competitors free service!!1!"

  • Dizzy #109 4 years ago

    "I don't know how matchmaking works, I thought that was game dependant, if that's true, how can it be justified by the cost of Live"

    Matchmaking runs indeed on Live servers, so does (some) chat/video and messaging. Storage of course also runs on Live servers and there are also trueskill servers. Basically everything except the game communication is implemented by MS on Live servers so games makers do not have to do anything for all that themselves. BTW while most companies choose P2P on Live because it is build into the SDK of sorts, they can easily use dedicated servers if they want. Most companies apparently do not want to spend the extra money to run dedicated servers for their games on Live. A pity. Oh yes.. don't forget the Akamai servers that mirror Live content to local loops. Those cost shitloads.

    Anyway... enough from me in this thread. As a long time gamer and dev I am used to "problems" at high loads and peak periods. It is a pity, but it happens. I just switch on my DS or my PC or go outside for some sports ;) instead of race to a forum and shout about it ;) I guess it comes with age :p

    >we play with people from that zone.

    Err????? Almost no games do that (but yes they can... filter options are available for devs).
    Edited by 2 at 03/01/08 @ 14:10

  • Dizzy #110 4 years ago

    "All the server is doing is providing your console with the stats to make a decision as to who you play with while it searches out games and so forth. "

    ROFL.. the very definition of a matchmaking server.

    What do you think it does? Serves you breakfast?

  • JediMasterMalik #111 4 years ago

    That's exactly what I thought, it doesn't require so much server use that it would require a fee. Valve on the PC track Stats, as they do on the PSN and the same with Infinity ward with CoD4, why do they not charge a subscription? I'm sure on the PS3 at least they also do matcmaking as far as ranks go.

    About the dedicated servers, I think at least for 1st party games, MS should allow dedicated servers for Gold users to justify the cost of it.

  • bad09 #112 4 years ago

    @ headbog

    My mistake! Your right it's not fool proof but in general it works fine (for me anyway!)

  • Dizzy #113 4 years ago

    "About the dedicated servers, I think at least for 1st party games, MS should allow dedicated servers for Gold users to justify the cost of it. "

    Yes true and a good idea.

    On the old XBox a lot of games had dedicated server modes. Seems to have disappeared.

    "I'm sure on the PS3 at least they also do matchmaking as far as ranks go. "

    Ofc in theory you can do 100% the same on PSN but it will require more work from devs and it won't play together with other games so easily :)

    For me the biggest good thing about Live subscription is that they can ban people and it will hurt (a bit). Sadly this feature is underused. Blizzard seems to be more serious about that.

    >Valve on the PC track Stats

    BTW not all stat tracking servers are equal. You can have realtime stat tracking (harder and more expensive) and non-realtime (easy and cheapo). Live is a (nearly) realtime one.
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 14:18

  • L42yB #114 4 years ago

    @Dizzy - ">we play with people from that zone.

    Err????? Almost no games do that (but yes they can... filter options are available for devs). "

    Actually, this is done in the background by the Xbox Live matchmaking servers. They will match you based on the "best available" match according to you zone, reputation and preferred players. Of course, if the only other person playing is an avoided player in a different zone with a rep of 0, it will still match you to that person since there is no one else... but in the case where there are tons of players to choose from your zone will become a factor, even if the devs didn't specifically filter for it...

  • bad09 #115 4 years ago

    @Dizzy

    we play with people from that zone.

    "Err????? Almost no games do that (but yes they can... filter options are available for devs)."

    Isn't that the whole point of the 4 different zones on Live?

  • Dizzy #116 4 years ago

    "Actually, this is done in the background by the Xbox Live matchmaking servers. They will match you based on the "best available" match according to you zone"

    Yes and no. As far as I know this is based more on your latency... not on your "settings" in account. But yes.. the end result is the same probably.

    >Isn't that the whole point of the 4 different zones on Live?

    Not really... but like I said servers will most likely match you with closer players due to latency and pings. I have had (Halo 2) matches with Japanese players many times.
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 14:21

  • DrDamn #117 4 years ago

    @Headbog
    "1. Of course you cant join a game if you are invited to one as a silver member. That's the point! It doesnt stop you being invited, it just stops you playing."

    That's hardly a feature though is it?

    "3. ... I dont, however, have to pay £40 a year to get it."

    No - you just have to wait ... it's a year in and they still don't have the basics like in game XMB access sorted.

    "4. How come MS dont charge PC gamers a penny for their version of Live to play each other? Its' EXACTLY THE SAME SERVICE, except for being FREE.(Clue: I already know the answer, lets see if you do too)."

    They did if they wanted to play against 360 users didn't they?

    "5. Average life of a console is 5 years. 5x£40=£200. the cheapest PS3 is £299, the cheapest 360 with a hard drive is £350. So for £50 more I get unlimited online play for the entire life of the console. The Wi is even cheaper than the 360 and you dont have to pay to play online."

    If you want to play numbers then PS3 games are also ~£5 more expensive currently. Wii online stuff is suitably shite except where they can make a tonne of cash - i.e. selling old games without having to go through the unnecessary inconvenience of remaking them yet again - and indicative of how much Nintendo spend on the service.

    The bottom line for me is that I have both and I am happy to pay £40 a year for Live based on my experience. Not everyone will be, but I am.

  • JediMasterMalik #118 4 years ago

    PS3 games are not more expensive, that's pure bullshit, it's not even an argument.

  • bad09 #119 4 years ago

    @ Dizzy

    Straight from the MS website..

    A Gamerzone is a specific “zone” you determine for yourself that decides your top of play style. It is a factor in Player Matches of Xbox Live matchmaking, which allows you to play with people with your similar play style.

  • Dizzy #120 4 years ago

    "A Gamerzone is a specific “zone” you determine for yourself that decides your top of play style"

    Oops.. I thought you guys were talking about geographical zones for the Live servers.

    My mistake. Ignore my comments in that case about "zones" -.-

  • DrDamn #121 4 years ago

    @JMM
    "PS3 games are not more expensive, that's pure bullshit, it's not even an argument."

    On cross platform games that was my experience when looking in shops over Christmas. CoD4 for example. Widely sold as PS3 = £45, 360 = £40. Even when on special in Game during the run up to Christmas PS3 = £35, 360 = £30.

  • bad09 #122 4 years ago

    LOL I wondered why you was talking about Japan Dizzy!!

  • JediMasterMalik #123 4 years ago

    Funny that for CoD4, Play.com have the rrp of the 360 version £5 higher than the PS3 version. Although after discounts they're identical.

  • DrDamn #124 4 years ago

    RRP tends to be the same, discounting in the high street is usually £5 more on the 360. I suspect this will disappear over time, but do pop into your local HMV or Game and do a compare yourself. It certainly ain't bullshit.

  • bad09 #125 4 years ago

    @ JediMasterMalik

    In fairness a lot of shops are charging more for PS3. Woolies wanted £50 for COD4 on PS3!! DrDamn, if you shop around though you can get games for both for around the same price.

  • DrDamn #126 4 years ago

    @JMM
    "Funny that for CoD4, Play.com have the rrp of the 360 version £5 higher than the PS3 version. Although after discounts they're identical."

    Yes they have the PS3 version for £40, 360 standard version for £40 and the 360 Special edition for ... oh look £35! ;)

  • JediMasterMalik #127 4 years ago

    Fair enough, but you shouldn't be buying from the high street anyway, it's generally more expensive anyway. Online retailers ftw.

  • DrDamn #128 4 years ago

    @bad09
    Yeah I know :-). It tends to be just high street discounting which is higher on the 360 games. To a lot of people that is very visible though. I was a very good samaritan over Christmas directing several people out of Zavvi and HMV towards the local Game when the CoD4 offer was on.

  • bad09 #129 4 years ago

    @ DrDamn

    "It tends to be just high street discounting which is higher on the 360 games"

    That's just to be expected though it's a bigger user base so they make up the cash. If PS3 base increases you'll see the same discounts.

  • DrDamn #130 4 years ago

    Price difference was in places like HMV and Zavvi (Bristol and Bath). See other discussion with JMM. The PS3 is following a similar path to the 360 in terms of highstreet pricing. First year there was little discounting from the RRP, after a year it started to chill a little when HMV did some good discounting. The same is happening with the PS3. Started out high and now there are a decent number of punters and more competition then are discounting more.

    "No, the bottom line is, people are willing to pay £200 more than they need to for a few bells and whistles that dont actually make much of a difference to their ability to play against other people."

    Actually a couple of the features I mentioned like setting up a private chat between two people so you can chat to a friend but not everyone else, or have friends only chat can vastly improve the game experience. Maybe the lower uptake of mic's on the PS3, or maybe a higher proportion of twats on Live :-) - but being able to just hear your friends or very quickly mute any other player in any game is a god send.

  • DrDamn #131 4 years ago

    @headbog
    "Finally, once again, these are software options that can be implemented for free, and have been elsewhere."

    Absolutely, but my point is that they are in every single 360 game because they are standard blade features.

    CoD4 is a good example of why you might want those features. Just want to chat away without bothering other players? Set up a private chat. In a party of 6 friends playing as a team against randoms but don't want the squelling in between matches? Friends only chat.

    PSN is good considering the lack of cost, but Live was already there as an example of what needed to be done with the XBox. Can't see why Sony didn't just copy it from the off.

    Something not yet mentioned is the speed of downloaded. I regularly download big stuff from Live at my maximum download rate from my ISP. I rarely get close to that speed with the PSN. MS spent a lot of money setting up the infrastructure for Live.

  • DrDamn #132 4 years ago

    Does that include or exclude "installation" time? :)

    What about dashboard / XMB updates? You think those are quicker on PSN? a Dashboard update takes < 1 minute and XMB update takes > 10 minutes.

  • DrDamn #133 4 years ago

    @Headbog
    "I stopped using voice chat in games a while ago - and judging by the number of silent people I have seen playing Live over the last few months, I think many others dont bother too."

    I just spotted the importance of this comment and probably highlights the reasons for difference of opinions between us. I.e. why I value these certain features and you are happy enough to play with out them. Just about 95% of my online time is spent playing games against or with people on my friends list. The banter is an integral part of the game. Therefore a mic is a given and being able to shut out the noise of those who just want to annoy priceless. If you play online more for the challenge of human opponents then the value of these sort of features are going to be much lower.

  • miiiguel #134 4 years ago

    As usual this will never lead anywhere, I'll continue to pay for Live Gold, happily, believe it or not.
    No need to call names also, don't be mad, it's my money after all.

    If you pay some atention to yourselfs you'll see your ovelooking stuff of PSN (like voice chat, integrated features and wotnot..., when they "fix" that stuff and say that's next-gen after all you'll say you love it. That's just the way it is).
    I don't have the full experience without Live, but you shouldn't judge me for that. Shit I like it, I like it a lot, what can I do?
    I hear some praising about PSN, while even Sony suits say PSN is not meant to be like Live, for that they're doing Home (portuguese saying: "trying to be holier than the Pope";).

    Will Home be free ? Will you pay for it (now it's the time to say it's a completly diferent service, because it's oh so amazing and stuff...).

    mkreku: I didn't suffer any downtime, it just got slow within a time window. And I thought every one admited that Live is a better service than PSN. I have several friends with PS3's and they have no problem to say it's a "litle service". Then again they're no "real gamers" haha!

    moral of the story: MS does everything wrong for a fee. Sony doesn't like profit (unless we're saying they rule the console market), and every penny is for RnD, they give TV's away every Church morning. MS customers are wankers and no nothing about the devil inside, Sony fans go to heaven.
    Edited by 8 at 03/01/08 @ 16:34

  • mattigan #135 4 years ago

    This thread used to be interesting with all the talk from Dizzy et al about how things work in the background and stuff.

    and now headbog, JMM and DrDamn have have turned it into Teh YAWNZ+1

    Well done boys.

  • JediMasterMalik #136 4 years ago

    It's better than the usual fanboy mud slinging we normally get.

  • PEANUTXXI #137 4 years ago

    These things happen in all walks of life and I just wish people would stop whinning. You're paying 40 quid a year - oooooh, loads of money. I think that works out to roughly 11p a day.

    For some people, 40 pounds a year is a lot - but that was in 1965.

    I was playing the Wii over Christmas and doing what most people do, going out.

    And I have all 3 consoles - I only use content services on the 360 and Wii as I cannot stand PSN.

    Disclaimer - not a fanboy of any console. Just want to play games.



  • JediMasterMalik #138 4 years ago

    Which means you foolishly haven't played SSHD.

    I pity you.

  • polymorph #139 4 years ago

    @ DrDamn,
    Well i have the opposite to you, my psn downloads are as fast as my broadband speed, my live downloads on the other hand......

  • polymorph #140 4 years ago

    @ JediMasterMalik,
    +1, still the best game on the service though.

  • markypants #141 4 years ago

    Wow, been waiting to see this article hit the front page. I'm amazed that anybody can be defending Microsoft in what amounts to be a huge failure in service at a time of year when most people get some holiday time to actually play online. I can understand if you are a student and have the time to play more often, but for me it was the most amount of time I'd had off all year and I could rarely get online to play multiplayer.

    The lack of official word from MS is terrible and arrogant. I'd have expected something by now and it has really tarnished my opinion of the company and the LIVE service for the future. I hope the compensation is a months free LIVE as it has pretty much ben screwed in some way or another for a month. Annoyingly it has been borked at night when (once again) I can only find the time to play.

    Appreciate that technology can break, but also know that this should have been expected and a bit of pre-planning would have helpd the situation.

  • JediMasterMalik #142 4 years ago

    Hopefully we'll be getting Everyday Shooter soon though, god knows why we've had to wait so long.

  • polymorph #143 4 years ago

    @ JediMasterMalik,
    Eh, what shooter? googles.......

    Edit,
    found a dirty ign review, 7.9.
    Edited by 1 at 03/01/08 @ 17:42

  • Diabeu #144 4 years ago

    BOOBIES!!!!!!!!!

  • PEANUTXXI #145 4 years ago

    Any company can have a continuity plan but you can't account for everything. They're human and like all humans, have flaws. I'm not defending them, I'm just saying this is the real world - not the perfect one. I worked for an airline for 7 years in IT and you just cannot account for everything. If our operation went done due to IT, you had the potential of stranded passengers and huge cost to the company - did everything always work? No. Why? Because it's IT. These things just happen. We once had builders (another companies) cut through a data fibre whilst removing some flooring - how do you account for that?

    If this happens again within 6 months after it's fixed, then I'd be getting on my high horse but I've subscribed to Live from basically the beginning of the xbox era and there's never been any lengthy connectivity problems apart from this.

    On communication - fair enough, they should have said something earlier.

    @JediMasterMalik

    Not really a huge fan of arcade games. Play multiplayer bomberman every now and then but that's it really.



  • Madder-Max #146 4 years ago

    "Any company can have a continuity plan but you can't account for everything"

    LOLLLL!

    Right so its difficult to plan for a festive season when people are off work, buying more games, buying more consoles etc...

    Either you are a comedian or you are a dick. oh and yyes its IT and yes things go wrong but thats where back up and disaster recovery comes in and we all know that FD's anuses tighten up as soon as these solutions are mentioned.
    Edited by 2 at 03/01/08 @ 19:20

  • CannonAnBall #147 4 years ago

    Well, it's 10pm and i've just had my 360 freeze up on me again trying to play online COD! There is little chance of a game for the rest of the night i think now.

  • agparrot #148 4 years ago

    Well, it's 10pm and i've just had my 360 freeze up on me again trying to play online COD! There is little chance of a game for the rest of the night i think now.

    I know this may be no use to you, but usually it sort of gets better at about 1am!

    I'll be there....

  • g@area404.org #149 4 years ago

    @Peanutxxi - we have seen prolonged downtimes before. Basically every update that comes along such as spring update and fall updates. Plus back when the service first went up, it was rubbish. Ok, so it was the best at the time but well, who was competing?


    My main concern isn't that its broken. I work in IT I can accept that. My main issues are its been broken for 10 days. Very few IT problems (keeping in mind this is networking we're talking about) take 10 days, with no explination, to fix.

    Communication is key. MS are renowned for keeping quiet for ages and then coming out stating "Oh, yeah... you were right. we've screwed up". (Think the recent banning/unbanning scenario due to dodgy lasers, and of course 3RLOD issue).

    Its to be expected people are pissed at MS and I think they should be. MS have been shoddy on this issue.

  • PEANUTXXI #150 4 years ago

    Nice mature argument there Madder Max, go you. Edited twice too, nice to see you were thorough in your, er, attempts at civil conversation. Do you know what the actual problem is? "It's solved by a back up or sumfin" is not the answer too everything that goes wrong in networking. Could have been the festive "overload" but I had problems when the update was released. Dashboard constantly hanging up but it went away and is back again.

    @g@area404.org - I know it's 10 days and isn't good, didn't say it was. My point is I don't see why people have to start going nuts over something like this. I'm sure it's not a conspiracy. It's just, well, crapped out. Ask for a refund on the down time if you personally feel cheated.

    As I said, I agree on communication, should have been better.

    Maybe I'm too relaxed for my own good.

  • g@area404.org #151 4 years ago

    @PEANUTXXI

    yeah, I can see your point and lets be fair, XBL being a bit broken for a few days is hardly the end of the earth. Just could have been handled better imo.

    My only concern is actually for the "greater good" :) Its a very good way to put newly owned users off XBL. I've played it, you've played it and we know in general its a very good service. The issue is that new people don't :)

    But yeah, anyhow, its not exactly the end of world.

  • oreillymj #152 4 years ago

    Free copies of Vista to all Live members who experienced login difficulties.

    They have to empty that warehouse somehow ;-)

  • GordonJ #153 4 years ago

    Free arcade game, posted on Major Nelson's site, no details on if it's any game or one game in particular yet.

  • DrDamn #154 4 years ago

    Most likely one I own already - how about just some MSPs? What's wrong with that?

  • DrDamn #155 4 years ago

    Wow - official comment ... link.

    ------------

    Dear Xbox LIVE Members:

    During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records. This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service.

    As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break. While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance. I would like to take this moment to thank you each and every one of you for your patience and understanding as our team has worked around the clock to return the service to a stable state.

    At the same time we would like to offer a token of our appreciation to all of you in celebration of record success for the service. And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge. In the coming weeks we will be sharing the specific details of this offer with you.

    Thank you again for helping make Xbox LIVE everything that it is today!

    Sincerely,

    Marc Whitten

    General Manager, Xbox LIVE

    --------------------------

    It's a little bit congratulatory for an apology ... but at least it's a comment. Last line is almost like it's all our fault too. "Thank you again for helping make Xbox LIVE everything that it is today!" - i.e. broken :D.

  • mazzl #156 4 years ago

    @DrDamn

    this is what amazes me the most about pr, live went down and ms celebrates this as a record breaking event.
    they should apologise for the bad service and lack of response not hand out freebees to celebrate the success of live!

    ms starts sounding like the iraki minister of communication ;)

  • busboy33 #157 4 years ago

    As an admitted 360 fan the downtime is unacceptable for Live. Yes, things break -- but a week-plus? That's just not right. If it were simply a matter of increased traffic, then you plug new servers into the networrk. That's taking them over a week (system still crash-happy tonite 1/2/08 during peak US hours)? Something doesn't make sense about this.

    Oh, well, at least they're going to give out some free swag -- free is good. I guess everybody gets some Space Girrafe after all.

    btw, there's a nasty rumor floating around that some hackers are involved:
    http://ww w.primotechnology.com/2008/01/0...

  • Madder-Max #158 4 years ago

    "Nice mature argument there Madder Max, go you. Edited twice too, nice to see you were thorough in your, er, attempts at civil conversation."

    Ahhh. the last resort of a desperate man. Attack instead of discuss. Go you.

  • oreillymj #159 4 years ago

    @busboy33
    That's just not right. If it were simply a matter of increased traffic, then you plug new servers into the networrk

    And I suppose you just pop down to Tesco's and buy a few servers.

    Get real! There's a lead time of about 4-8 weeks on this sort of stuff from the major suppliers.

  • Fab4 #160 4 years ago

    Even if there was a lead time (like for us normal people) none such would exist for a customer like M$. That being said, if you are in the market of offering an online service then planning for said service should be your main priority. This includes capacity increases for expected peaks (dont tell me Xmas came as a shock to them).

  • oreillymj #161 4 years ago

    @Fab4

    Believe me when I tell you, it doesn't matter who you are, whether you order 1 server or 100 servers, you will be waiting for them to be built and dellivered and depending on what you ordered you wait wait a week or 2. Over Xmas, you'll wait longer.

    I work in a very large I.T. related organisation and I'm talking from experience.


    Oh, and even when these thing arrive, you also have other capacity related items to worry about, like physically setting servers up in racks, making sure you have power, network capacity, backups etc. All of which take time to organise.