Xbox Live comes back to life

By Robert Purchese Published 30 September, 2008

Maintenance done. Tea finished.

Microsoft has finished maintenance work on Xbox Live.

The downtime lasted slightly longer than planned as foundations were laid for the upcoming dashboard revamp, which looks likely to happen in November.

This also hails the arrival of the Mii-style "Avatars" that will liven up Gamercards and soften the hardcore image of the console.

Part of this will be subtly-animated themes and Friends lists, which were explained in more detail yesterday. With pictures.

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 (23) Latest comment 3 years ago

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

  • awb83 #1 3 years ago

    exciting stuff



    woopwoop, 1st comment

  • NewbieZilla #2 3 years ago

    /Waits for comments asking why the update didn't include the NXE.

  • Merlinho #3 3 years ago

    Not exciting really. That's why you were first comment.

  • agparrot #4 3 years ago

    Why didn't the update include the NXE?

    ;)

    I was really enjoying having to play Dead Rising offline, too.

  • mikeck #5 3 years ago

    Good timing to do it actually - in terms of new games, there's nothing really out at the moment, and now I have a new PC I have managed to start Warhammer Online finally!! This update had no impact on my xbox live gaming, and that's the way I like's it :D

    However, it's only a few weeks and then all the games I've been waiting for (for what seems an age) come out - too many games, not enough time.

  • christourlord #6 3 years ago

    Great timing to do it... I haven't played on Xbox Live for yonks. I'm looking forward to coming back to console gaming in a couple of months with a bunch of great games and a shiny new UI to play with.

  • Dark_Stranger #7 3 years ago

    I have played Live for months & decided that after misses went to bed I would fire up the xbox & have a play. This was at 9:00, at 10:00 i gave up trying to connect & thought 1) xbox was shagged, 2) router was shagged 3) BB was shagged.

    How my mates laughged when I told them my story, with them knowing Live was down last night & i didnt.

    I would be nice for MS to set up some way that when you try to connect to live & the backend is down & small message is dispalyed,

    Annoyed from Margate.

  • mcmonkeyplc #8 3 years ago

    No new dashboad! Fuck YOU M$

  • convercide #9 3 years ago

    @mem

    Why not own both? There's not a rule where you only have one or the other.

    Live has just broken for me. Can't get in any online games. :/

  • bioreit #10 3 years ago

    @ mem

    Step 1: Block all communication from non-friends.

    Step 2: Don't add 12-13 year olds as Live friends.

    Step 3: Play your games in blissful silence. Except for when your friends are online.

    Really isn't that hard.

  • captainrentboy #11 3 years ago

    Pure's working fine for me again, Live seems ok.
    Facking hell Pure's good online when you're playing against your actual mates.
    mem, is the PS3's online totally free of plebs then?

  • TheLittlestHobo #12 3 years ago

    Dark Stranger: I have played Live for months & decided that after misses went to bed I would fire up the xbox & have a play. This was at 9:00, at 10:00 i gave up trying to connect & thought 1) xbox was shagged, 2) router was shagged 3) BB was shagged.

    so I trust then... 4) wife was shagged ;)

    Re: the NXE: It makes sense to hold this back for the pre-Christmas hypethon, possibly starting with Gears 2 or whenever the holiday sales figures kick off, so November makes sense.

  • convercide #13 3 years ago

    From a few reports from my friends it seems that it is just COD4 that is gimped. However private chat seems to be failing too.

  • daz_john_smith #14 3 years ago

    Slow news day then?

  • andromeda #15 3 years ago

    yeah Dark_Stranger me too

    all it said for me was that the MTU check had failed. spent ages fiddling with the router on ly to learn that Live was down 4 maintenance. doh

    but i guess if the connection is down theres no way of really showing a prompt as to the reason?

  • Jellybob #16 3 years ago

    @Andromeda: They could have it set up to query a web server somewhere outside the Live network for status messages if it can't connect. The assumption would be that if there are no messages, it's your connection that's screwed, but otherwise there's something up with Live.

  • J.C #17 3 years ago

    Well how crap was that? and eh microsoft, i do have a paid for gold membership. im missing 24hrs gaming time, are you going to compensate? no thought not.

  • TheLittlestHobo #18 3 years ago

    Well how crap was that? and eh microsoft, i do have a paid for gold membership. im missing 24hrs gaming time, are you going to compensate? no thought not.

    I'm sure missing 10p worth of Live gaming is really gonna break the bank.. Anyway you'll be getting the new Xbox dash for free so swings and roundabouts...

  • hulahoops #19 3 years ago

    "That equates to 11p."

    :o

  • asphaltcowboy #20 3 years ago

    As per usual - do people not read the messages MS sends them, telling them about the downtime? Or perhaps cast their eyes over some of the images in the dashboard (usually left for adverts) that notify you of downtime? Or indeed head straight to MajorNelson.com to see if anything is going on? Seriously, it's been widely publicised.

  • chiz #21 3 years ago

    Well how crap was that? and eh microsoft, i do have a paid for gold membership. im missing 24hrs gaming time, are you going to compensate? no thought not.

    How the hell can you moan about a days loss of live, when you're getting a who new dashboard for free?
    Edited by 1 at 30/09/08 @ 18:55

  • hahayou #22 3 years ago

    It also knocked out GfW Live for some reason. I think I'm the only person in the world who noticed.

  • optimusprym8 #23 3 years ago

    seems to be down / up / down again this morning