Xbox Live having trouble. Again. On Christmas day.

We hear a lot of people are having problems with Xbox Live today (we're not, for the record), but if you're feeling a bit sheepish about giving the gift of a 360 + Live service to a loved one, just imagine how Microsoft must feel. The service -- which we'd like to remind everyone is paid, unlike the competition's -- has been up and down since Christmas weekend. And it's not some surprise that there would be an influx of users today, nor is it any mystery to Microsoft how many Live accounts and Xboxes were sold over the past couple of weeks -- which is precisely why this kind of thing is so annoying. Thankfully, it seems to be a bit less widespread than last weekend's outage. Feel free to shout it out in comments.

[Thanks, Peter]

Read - Xbox Live status
Read - Outage on Xbox Live Forums (again)

[mrzbox @ Dec 25th 2007 6:48PM]

damn it i thought it was sony s sabotage but no it s the freaking wee oops sorry it s we nope wee or wathever no i v e got it wii

[computer.dude.28 @ Dec 25th 2007 7:29PM]

Wtf is this?

[James Papadopoulos @ Dec 25th 2007 8:58PM]

It's someone trying to be funny or facetious -- but they never learned how to spell or form coherent sentences.

[Luke @ Dec 25th 2007 8:36PM]

Grammatical NIGHTMARE!

[RyanTV @ Dec 25th 2007 8:47PM]

Give him a break - he's only 11 years old.

[Kriston @ Dec 25th 2007 10:52PM]

The Wii online service was also affected these past few days with new customers.
I was showing off my Wii (which I've had since last Spring) and was embarrassed that the online access was unresponsive, slow, and often produced errors.
Chalk it up to holiday traffic.

[ScareyJ @ Dec 26th 2007 12:32AM]

d@mn, sorry Ryan! I disagreed with your logic, but sure as hell you were right about it not being solved soon. It's been up 'mostly' here ... but even while watching TV through it as an extender, I could see it kick the account periodically. It would be a disappointing first experience if I just got it today.

Where the heck can a guy buy a standard Wii setup (instead of the $800 packages) without having to keep relying on luck!? yeah yeah hate me, but it makes more sense for my 5 year old.

[Jose Rodriguez @ Dec 30th 2007 5:11AM]

yeah earlier today me& pals were having problems over XBL saturday afternoon with COD4. they said its been like this for days. i hope ppl realize how good we have most of the time in our lives.

[caramelzappa @ Dec 25th 2007 6:50PM]

Microsoft needs to invest in more workers and servers. Usually live is wonderful but whenever there's a major game or patch launch it becomes a pain for a week or so. I suppose the same thing happens with everyone shopping for Christmas.

[maveric101 @ Dec 25th 2007 11:03PM]

yeah, when halo 3 launched so many people jumped on LIVE (probably over 2 million) that LIVE was crashed for much of launch day, and laggy for a little while after.

however, everything seems fine now. i was just playing halo 3 on LIVE a couple hours ago and had zero issues and zero lag.

[maveric101 @ Dec 25th 2007 11:06PM]

oh and i would like to point something out. i don't understand why people even bother pointing out that you have to pay for Xbox LIVE. i mean, c'mon. $50 per year works out to less than $1 per week. less than 14 cents per day. you could pay for LIVE by picking up coins off the streets.

[tcc3 @ Dec 25th 2007 11:24PM]

In addition to bitching about the cost, they then demand more servers/personnel/magic network bullets.

[mattyuk @ Dec 25th 2007 6:52PM]

My advice: Get over it, it will be fixed soon. Christmas day is family time - remember why you all buy presents for each other and quit being a bunch of whiners. Merry Christmas!

[DopestGingah @ Dec 25th 2007 8:02PM]

totally agree!!! don't yall think its going to be fixed by at most tommorow??? Ohh God!! 24 hours w/o xbox!?!?!? What ever shall I do!!!

[Jesus Valadez @ Dec 25th 2007 8:08PM]

I don't celebrate Xmas...so ya..I want to play now.

[Jonathan-DBOSS @ Dec 25th 2007 8:28PM]

Yet your name is Jesus. Ironic, huh?

[Ricardo @ Dec 25th 2007 9:04PM]

@Jonathan,

One of the few things in life we cannot choose is our own name.

[Ian @ Dec 25th 2007 9:12PM]

@ Ricardo
i think he knows that, and didnt really mean anything by it. but it is a bit ironic dont you think?

[Ian @ Dec 25th 2007 9:12PM]

@ Ricardo
i think he knows that, and didnt really mean anything by it. but it is a bit ironic dont you think?

[DarkLightConnection @ Dec 25th 2007 9:21PM]

You CAN choose your name

[Boostjunkie @ Dec 25th 2007 10:40PM]

Actually Jesus would want nothing to do with this pagan holiday. Just do a search about Christmas, any real Christian would keep far away from it.

[Luis @ Dec 25th 2007 11:09PM]

@boostjunkie: WRONG. What the hell is wrong with you. Jesus is behind ANYTHING that promotes a sense of good will and peace on Earth. He doesn't care what you call it or when you celebrate it, as long as people take the time to recognize those qualities at least ONCE each year, he is all for it.

[JeffM @ Dec 25th 2007 11:13PM]

Get over it? Yea I dunno about that- my ISP never has issues like this and they do a lot more heavy lifting than XBOX live and it costs $50.

[Zach @ Dec 26th 2007 12:01AM]

@DarkLightConnection
please, jesus (heh.), tell me your joking.

are you referring to the fact that jesus actually MAKES the good on the earth?
or are you just trying to push your religion on everyone reading engadget.*

i hope its the first since theres a medical diagnosis, and pills, for that.
but if its the latter, oh lord (heh once more.) save us.

*i, to be quite frank, don't care for anyones religion (or mine for that matter), nor am i racist, but when you start acting like jesus makes me help an old lady cross the street, or give money to charities ....

[Zach @ Dec 26th 2007 12:01AM]

oops that was at luis. my bad darklight

[Dahk @ Dec 26th 2007 12:21AM]

Actually December 25th originated from a Roman festive holiday thing. It's actually NOT Jesus's birthday lol.

[Carbonize @ Dec 26th 2007 1:11AM]

Actually December 25th was the pagan festival of the sun god. This is why in some images Jesus is depicted with a glow behind him. Some believe this is because the original imagery was of the sun god and not Jesus. It is also believed that a smart Roman emperor declared that Jesus's birthday was actually December 25th to try and separate the Christians form the traditional Jews.

But given how often the way we mark the passing of the years has changed since those days who could say for sure? And frankly these days who cares? Christmas these days is more about worshipping presents than any religious figure. Oh and the time of year for attention seekers to cover their houses in tacky lights.

[mrzbox @ Dec 25th 2007 6:54PM]

el numero uno
tha shall not frag thee on my birthday nor shall there be any killing therefore i shut down xbl

[Adrian Williams @ Dec 25th 2007 6:54PM]

Threadjack: Congrats Ryan for making Forbes top 25 Kings and Queens of the web for 2007
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/12/18/web-celeb-fame-tech-cx_de_07webceleb_1218top_slide.html?partner=abcnews

[mrzbox @ Dec 25th 2007 6:57PM]

hey mat i see you are spending sometime with the familly very good

[Will @ Dec 25th 2007 7:03PM]

Ha ha!

[Mike10010100 @ Dec 25th 2007 7:24PM]

Chock one up for the pc gamers and others who don't play on subscription services!

Yay!

[ChrisG @ Dec 25th 2007 7:30PM]

this is pretty awful. I have a gold subscription and i had problems with live all of sunday, but other than that i haven't had problems. I just hope I'm able to connect tonight though. The worst thing about this situation is that instead of entire areas experiencing difficulties with live its only random gamers. For example, when there was that major outage on Sunday, I wasn't able to connect, whereas my friend who lives 2 blocks away was able to connect and stay on all day. It's really annoying considering the fact that you have to recover your account all over again.

[Tim Dorr @ Dec 25th 2007 7:42PM]

No problems here. Just got my sister's boyfriend's account on Live just tonight. Worked without a hitch.

[good PR @ Dec 25th 2007 7:53PM]

well I gotta wait until I try Live anyways, so it's all good .

[Speddy @ Dec 25th 2007 8:00PM]

Here ya go: I'm ebaying my 360, the HD-DVD player, 2 white wireless controllers, 2 black wireless controllers, the two-battery charging station, two 1600pt (xmas) gift cards, plus 10 games (including Halo 1, 2 & 3, and CoD4), one white wireless headset and a never opened Halo 3 controller with Halo 3 wireless headset.

Ofcourse, the auction will start once I get my 360 returned from MS repair depot after a RRoD! (that will mean a 90-Day warranty included, with 2 years left on the RRoD issue).

[vuph @ Dec 25th 2007 8:15PM]

advertise your crap someplace else.

[Speddy @ Dec 25th 2007 9:09PM]

@vuph: Yes, exactly. It is crap. M$ crap. Suck it. And I am hardly advertising it here. More like a rant and vent. Shove that up your chimney!

[Steve Wallen @ Dec 25th 2007 8:02PM]

I wonder if it could be a DOS attack on the Live servers; be a good time to get some mud on MS's face if you had a grudge and a bot network.

[[e-mail] @ Dec 25th 2007 8:11PM]

The Internet is not 100% reliable 24/7. The outage will be temporary. I have been a live user since day one and have had my frustrations. At this time I am enjoying COD4 and loving it.

[Chris @ Dec 25th 2007 8:20PM]

Well, I'm not having any problems. So i say, thats what you get for being a late adopter.

[aaron @ Dec 25th 2007 8:21PM]

As am I on my PS3 with no problems............ever.

[Roofus @ Dec 25th 2007 9:29PM]

Have fun on your PS3 with no problems. Yeah, my linux server that sits around and never does anything has no problems too.

[ToonPac @ Dec 25th 2007 10:14PM]

I've literally only just been kicked off 10 mins ago, after signing on around 10PM (GMT). So for 5 hours it's worked great for me. I wish people would stop whining, so you lose a few hours here and there, what about the rest of the year? You still get your superior service, compared to PSN, which works very well.

[Fred @ Dec 25th 2007 8:20PM]

Seriously, maybe spend some time with the people who bought you live? Unless you bought it for yourself in which case that would be icky.

[Justin Meltzer @ Dec 25th 2007 8:35PM]

You know you always hear so many people dissing the PS3 and saying how great the xbox is, but when something like this happens to the xbox 360 everyone shuts up.

Well i'd like to say that i support the PS3 (and not that i hate the xbox 360, that would only bring me down to THEIR level) but now i can say this though... HA HA now your system sucks.

if there are any PS3 fanboys out there, just tell the haters to shut up and go play their own system... oh wait they can't play! too bad.

[Dylan K @ Dec 25th 2007 8:42PM]

Genesis for life, and don't you forget it.

[DarkLightConnection @ Dec 25th 2007 9:25PM]

I have a XBOX 360 and I can play :-D

Online isn't everything... there's something called "Artificial Intelligence", and it's there on every game, in case you didn't know :-)

[Skullfighter @ Dec 25th 2007 10:36PM]

@DarkLightConnection

You are so right there is artificial intelligence. Playstation 3 users have to use it ALL the time. For the Xbox, it's an alternative.

:-D

[Extinction @ Dec 26th 2007 2:50AM]

"You are so right there is artificial intelligence. Playstation 3 users have to use it ALL the time"

No we don't. We have free online multiplayer. 360 users use AI more than PS3 users, since