Xbox Live "up and running," now with no caveats.

After treading deeply into some crazy Orwellian statusbox doublespeak, it looks like Xbox Live is finally up and running with no lingering issues or caveats. According to Major Nelson, the entire Live team has been working "day and night" to get things sorted, and while we appreciate their efforts over the holidays, we're still of the opinion that Live members should be getting a free week or month -- you gotta deliver when you run a paid service.

Update: Now it's down again! Status message gives the old line about intermittent issues and engineers working on fixes. Ugh, could the timing on these outages be any worse?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[mg @ Dec 30th 2007 12:38PM]

Agreed. As thrilled as I am that things are finally working again, I gotta say, this would leave a bad taste in my mouth if they don't show us that it matters to them if their service isn't working.

[CarlJ @ Dec 30th 2007 12:40PM]

The constant complaining that users should get a free month is pathetic. Yes it's a paid service but you don't go demanding that you ISP give you a free week when your internet goes down or a site you subscribes to does not load on first try. What's with the anti microsoft?

[mike @ Dec 30th 2007 12:47PM]

That's ridiculous. When a page doesn't load, it could be (and probably is) the fault of the page. However this is *all* Microsoft's fault and when it's a 50 dollar a year service, uptime should be 99.999 percent. It's not. I think that 4 days of little to no service warrants a free month...or at least a free week.

[Yankees368 @ Dec 30th 2007 12:48PM]

I'm sorry, but when my cable or internet goes down, for even a very short amount of time...I am automatically credited $5 for the trouble.

[Tiptup300 @ Dec 30th 2007 1:12PM]

It wasn't even down for most people! Wow, an entire week free REALLY?!? Oh joy, 83 cents. Wait, how bout an entire MONTH! $3.33 thats crazy talk!

[warlock7 @ Dec 30th 2007 1:23PM]

Actually, you should go to your ISP and demand that they give you credit when their service goes down too. You paid for the service, then you should get what you paid for.

Everybody that pays for their XBL account should demand credit for their lost time!

Anybody that would argue about that is either working for the company that screwed up or is a complete moron for being a pushover for the company that they are paying.

[ChrisG @ Dec 30th 2007 3:10PM]

Well when you think about if your paying $50 a year for a subscription service, would you want some sort of reimbursement because the servers were down?! Microsoft really owes all Live subscribers some compensation because these issues have been going on from the 23rd to today, the 30th of December, which means that people who bought 360s for Christmas, or other holidays, couldn't enjoy what they spent $300 or more on.

[Clinton.Ward @ Dec 30th 2007 3:30PM]

It's not just that, when you cannot sign into XBOX Live, your XBOX LIVE Arcade games don't work. So it's a bigger issue for some. I play some of my Arcade games and it sucks that I can't play them because XBOX Live is down. Regardless of the cost, $50, I expect good service. If MS wants me to pay more, I would, but I expect them to honor there service level agreement. Especially if they require you to sign in to XBOX Live.

[Dan @ Dec 30th 2007 4:32PM]

Yes, I do request a credit on my cable account when my internet goes down and I get it EVERY time. I also get credited when one of my websites go down as well. If you pay for a service, you deserve to get it. This is why I dont trust Microsoft anyway. They dont care about the customer. And (AHEM) the Playstation Network has not been down once since I got my PS3 6 months ago....HMMMMMM....Just wanted to add that little dig in there. Down with Microsoft! Get a Playstation 3! HA HA HA

[Dan @ Dec 30th 2007 4:34PM]

Oh yeah....and the Playstation network is FREE!!!!

[Rurik @ Dec 30th 2007 5:18PM]

Actually, yes! If my phone service goes out, I am credited the amount of days, pro-rated, from my monthly bill. As am I with Comcast with outages there. There's no difference. I pay for access, and they were not able to deliver access, thus I shouldn't have to pay my full amount.

This has left a very bad taste for me. I just bought an XBox 360 on Friday, 28 DEC. I'm trying to show my wife how cool this is, and everything keeps breaking. We try to download a quick show for her to watch, and it keeps timing out and disconnecting. I add a mutual friend of ours and show how we can communicate with them... but we get Messenger errors all weekend. She's already made the comment that she regrets that I spent all that money on the system. Seeing it from her point of view, I can't argue. Everything I told her we could do with it, that would benefit her, doesn't work.

[Eddie @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:23PM]

PSN has never been down... just like the lines for the bathroom at a party no one showed up to are always shorter.

Let's compare apples and apples next time, huh? Not apples and systems no one wants to buy/play.

[Stallone @ Dec 30th 2007 12:43PM]

Still down for me over in UK

It's been down like this since 24th December. Can't even connect at all

Test connection and shows DNS failed

Sucks!

[Joe @ Dec 30th 2007 1:05PM]

Stallone, I think the problem is with your DNS. Not Microsofts.

[mattclarkie @ Dec 30th 2007 1:13PM]

I have been on alot since the 24th, it has never fully gone down, but has been iffy. I was on 20mins ago, and Halo3 was still dodgey, not as bad as yesterday, but not fully fixed.

I was cut-off with my ISP for 4weeks 2 years ago, and they offered to half my subscription fee because I threatened to leave. I still left because they had been crap for years, but the offer was good.

[Stallone @ Dec 30th 2007 12:47PM]

I think it's mostly because people for the service, and when you don't get what you paid for, it isn't fair

Another factor is how ps3's network is completely free yet it hasn't got such issues ( i know live has a bigger user base, but people are still paying money, so microsoft should atleast ensure the servers are running)

it's just the amount of money they milk off customers over things like themes, add ons, pictures, live service is a hell of a lot

[Jamie MacDonald @ Dec 30th 2007 12:56PM]

i have mixed feelings on this. I do think that M$ should offer up free time on Live to those who ASK FOR IT. Those not willing to make an effort to get it can lose out. I think that M$ should have been a little better prepared for all the kiddies getting 360's for xmas. I know I have been p1ssed I haven't gotten good gameplay on CoD4 over the holidays.

[Dustin @ Dec 30th 2007 8:20PM]

Which they are not. My brother just got a 360. He went to the store to get a 1-month card. He activated it and now has had a week of horrible pains in trying to connect.

So, 25% of his card has been basically useless. He called to complain and ask for some compensation, such as some time added to the end of his month, but they stonewalled him, and wouldn't give him anything. This is all while they were 1) acknowledging a problem and 2) taking responsibility for said problem.

They are losing some serious face with this one. Notch one off for MS. If they were smart, they'd stand up and take care of their users. Just because there's a million of us on live doesn't mean they can stop caring about the individual.

[Rk @ Dec 30th 2007 1:03PM]

Still can't recover my GamerTag. Caveat exposed.

[mroach @ Dec 30th 2007 2:19PM]

Same here. I've been trying to recover it for 3 days now. I feel that a month of free service is definitely in order. I just dropped over $500 on an Xbox, Halo, extra controller, charger, and Live. I've been able to use it for about two hours since I got it thanks to the complete failure of Microsoft and Live.

[2ASquared @ Dec 30th 2007 3:53PM]

You should have done it last night. I just bought a 360, and I wasn't able to sign up for an account since I bought it on the 26th. Just last night when this was posted, I ran down, set it up, and now I have an account. Problem is, xbox live on COD4 is still really shaky. I'll be able to play through 2 or 3 games straight with no issues, but after the second or thrid game, the game lobby is closed and I can't get into a new game (it tells me I don't have a network connection)

[MacBookOwner @ Dec 30th 2007 1:13PM]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop Engadget!
WTF is up with the other gaming sites though? Kotaku, Joystiq, and fucking XBoxFanBoy are pretending the outage never happened?

[epsilon343 @ Dec 30th 2007 1:18PM]

This downtime cost you all of $.96 of your $50 a year subscription. If you think that much of a dent to your wallet is reason enough to moan and complain about a very rare patch of limited connectivity, go ahead. But I, on the other hand, will not complain and will go ahead and play my games without any issue.

[ogi010 @ Dec 30th 2007 3:20PM]

Yeah but that 1 week is when most people have time off of work and/or school. I was out of town this last week, but if I wasn't I would have spent quite a bit of time on xbox live.

Ogi

[kastonie @ Dec 30th 2007 1:24PM]

OBEY

[Chris @ Dec 30th 2007 1:45PM]

It doesn't matter how much money was "lost" during the outage. It could've been $0.01, it could've been $100. The point is, it's the holiday season, people are out of school/work, and they want to play. But uh oh, service is down. It's the inconvenience that people should be compensated for. Microsoft wouldn't exactly go bankrupt for paying $0.96 worth of free subscription to anyone that complains to them. It isn't much, but it at least shows that they care and acknowledge that it shouldn't have been down. I know it would leave a better impression on me...

[Matt @ Dec 30th 2007 3:35PM]

That is if you pay for it yearly. You can also buy it quarterly or monthly.

[Russ @ Dec 30th 2007 1:23PM]

I'm in the UK. Tried to play an online SWOS games with a friend and it failed. Just tried Burnout Paradise and that hung on connecting to the servers. I don't think it's completely fixed yet. Testing the xbox live connection appears to show everything is ok.

[mattclarkie @ Dec 30th 2007 2:57PM]

From UK service tracker as of 19:55

Status:

Users may experience intermittent issues logging onto Xbox Live. Our engineers are continuing to investigate and are working to resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience.


I seem to have been ok with only a few issues, but MS seems to be struggling. I would expect that if your NAT is anything but Open you will really struggle, it is hard to get a game when the service is fully up and running.

[Russ @ Dec 30th 2007 3:08PM]

My NAT is open, but I've given up and will try another day ;)

[Senor_Tom @ Dec 30th 2007 1:32PM]

well, i was settin my live up for the first time yesterday, took ages before i could get past the live ID page.

[Rk @ Dec 30th 2007 1:33PM]

Halfway through recovering my GamerTag, let's all join hands and pray for me. =)

[BananaBoat @ Dec 30th 2007 1:38PM]

Anyone that thinks they deserve a free month in exchange for a few days of intermittent service, is a real douche. Week? Yes. Month? Hell no, they didn't cause you 10 bucks worth of grief. If they did cause you that much grief, you need to go outside.

[Rk @ Dec 30th 2007 1:41PM]

I campaign for 1000MS Points, which is equivalent to around £9 or $18. I guess I should head on outside? :/

[Rk @ Dec 30th 2007 1:45PM]

It worked! Huzzah!

[Jon MacDoanld @ Dec 30th 2007 1:52PM]

I just got my 360 for christmas. Even though there have been outages and slowdowns i've still been able to get quite a bit of online play done. The past couple days were making it hard to find other people for halo matches, i found myself playing forza 2 single player durring these times.

I do feel it would be a nice gesture on Microsoft's part to offer 1 free week of XBL. 1 month seems like a bit much.

[james @ Dec 30th 2007 1:55PM]

How about 50 or 100 MS Points ? That'd be cool not sure what the exact number should be but I'd take it.

[Cory @ Dec 30th 2007 1:58PM]

seriously people, stop whining about this. big deal, you got out of the house and got a life for a week, stop crying about it.

people pay $15 a month for those internet games like WoW and CoH, but that is only for one game! Xbox live is less than $5 a month and that is for almost every 360 game. its a good deal, and those games go down too, but nobody goes around crying about it

[Ant @ Dec 30th 2007 2:06PM]

if you pay for something and it doesnt work you are 100% correct in complaining about it.

[Arjun @ Dec 30th 2007 10:51PM]

Difference is, the companies behind those games credit users for unannounced downtime.

[CharlieX @ Dec 30th 2007 1:59PM]

It just started going offline again in California. 11am

[Ant @ Dec 30th 2007 1:59PM]

up and working my ass ive spent 30mins tryng to sign into live right now.

[nxtiak @ Dec 30th 2007 2:03PM]

11am PST. It just died for me AGAIN. Was working all morning long too!

[crazysundog @ Dec 30th 2007 2:04PM]

still down for me, west coast canada, 11:00 am pacific

[Stu @ Dec 30th 2007 2:05PM]

I am still having huge problems with matchmaking in Halo 3. When you compare it to PS3's free network that seems to work fine, paying for something that's down at the most likely time of the year I will play seems pretty craptacular.

[JBDragon @ Dec 30th 2007 5:22PM]

Xbox LIVE has 8+ million users, PS3 network doesn't! 360 has far more Online games then the PS3 does. LIVE is used far more then the PS3 network for many things. Lets see how things are with the PS3 when HOME is working and there's 10+ million PS3's out there and 8+ million users connected to that network. I'm pretty sure MS is far better with Networking then SONY is!

[simon @ Dec 30th 2007 2:12PM]

Im upset because it keeps happening... I was cool for the first few days, but not it really bugs me... I work 7 days a week and my xbox is my time to relax after my kid is in bed... I kick back and play for a couple hours with my friends, then go to bed... Theres really not much else I can do with freezing temps at night with my kid home and no sitter available. Its MY time when I play online, and while its not the end of the world, and it will eventually get straightened out, people dont like having their routine fu@#ed with...

[SIC TR4NSIT @ Dec 30th 2007 2:40PM]

*now... "now" it really bugs me... I am clearly a product of the American educational system...

[savage @ Dec 30th 2007 2:13PM]

Wow...just tried too connect again and talk too my friends and bam..still does not work...Thanks for the crap service....you should roll back the new update...every since that happened...the server is getting worse...and it takes for ever to load a friends list...my xbox has never froze 6 times in 10 min since that new update...Thanks M$ for making my xbox even worse than it already was...

[Not Live @ Dec 30th 2007 2:15PM]

It was running better for awhile, but my experience indicates they do not have a solution to the root cause (if they know the root cause) as the symptoms are back to where they were last night.