Xbox Live, Zune Marketplace down: what gives, Microsoft?

We're nearly nauseous from all the spinning on the Xbox Live carousel. One minute we're in, the next we're out. Now, Microsoft is confirming that the issues are back via Xbox.com, and as if that weren't enough in and of itself, the outfit is also informing Zune owners that they "may experience intermittent issues logging onto Zune Marketplace." From what we can tell, there's no definitive ETA on a resolution that will actually stick for more than ten minutes, but if we were you, we'd lock down that Hotmail account, pronto.

[Thanks, Robert S. and everyone who sent this in]
Read - Xbox.com Support
Read - Zune.net Support

[Erik @ Dec 30th 2007 7:53PM]

Yeah, we're all suckers for going with Microsoft...

There's just one problem. If you're gaming on PC, you're running Windows.

Your superiority complex is the reason I don't "wanna be" a PC gamer. This is more cost effective.

So please, shut up.

[lostarchitect @ Dec 30th 2007 7:08PM]

are we gonna get some kind of a credit for this? i haven't been able to get on for around a week!

[applefreak @ Dec 30th 2007 7:07PM]

what else is new?

[Seth @ Dec 31st 2007 1:35AM]

The official scoreboard of the gaming systems:

PS3 Wii XBOX 360
21 20.93333 0 (Go XBOX Live!)

[Andir3.0 @ Dec 30th 2007 11:32PM]

You get what you pay for... oh wait, you don't.

[Tyler @ Dec 30th 2007 7:09PM]

They should give me another trial month. I'm supposed to pay for this service? It took 25 minutes to get my last game of Halo going.

[Jeff D @ Dec 30th 2007 8:02PM]

At this point they should just bring the whole system down and fix it instead of trying to fix pieces then letting them run (since five days of evidence tells us this is not working.)

[John @ Dec 31st 2007 12:18AM]

while I agree you should get something better because you play money, on my PS3 I've never experienced an outage, yet I've also never been able to join a COD4 game. 25 minutes would be nice, as I've even left the thing sitting waiting while I work on my laptop with no success.

[pwnetheus @ Dec 30th 2007 7:11PM]

I really, really hope we get a free month or something. This is ridiculous.

[computer.dude.28 @ Dec 30th 2007 7:45PM]

Zune marketplace is out too. Does that mean we should get free songs?

[James ferretti @ Dec 30th 2007 8:02PM]

No, because you dont pay to acces Zune Marketplace, only download songs. You have the option of going somewhere else to get your songs, however XBL users have no other option if they want to play online on their 360s. You are not losing anything when Zune Marketplaace is down as you didn't pay for it (it is only MS that is losing as it cant sell anything,) whereas we are losing out because we are paying for something we cant access.

[pwnetheus @ Dec 30th 2007 8:50PM]

Not only can I not play my games online, but I can't play my Arcade games which need to connect to Live to validate them. I'm guessing you can still enjoy the music you have without connecting to the Zune marketplace right?

[sentient.exe @ Dec 30th 2007 9:03PM]

@James

You do know Zune Marketplace has a subscription based "all you can eat" service, right?

[Zak @ Dec 31st 2007 1:10PM]

@sentient.exe - Sure it's all you can eat, but then you have to go to the bathroom and puke it all back up again because you can't leave the restaurant with it.

[Maci @ Dec 30th 2007 7:11PM]

Down for a week thats terrible. I hope they get their problems fixed soon as I just bought a 360. My girlfriend's father called for her little brother and basically yelled at MS customer service who blamed the problem entirely on the Christmas rush. They claimed they didn't expect the rush. He made a good point though, what company expects their product not to sell well -- don't say Sony because we know they have all the confidence in the world ;p .

[tGill @ Dec 30th 2007 7:21PM]

It hasn't been down for a week, I've been playing halo 3 every night this week with little to no problems. However the dashboard and marketplace doesn't load. The current problem however is the worst xbox live has ever experienced, I've been a member of xbox live since December 2002 (1 month after it launched) and its never done anything like this. The problem is inexcusable, and everyone should be given atleast 500ms points, however this is the first time Its had a huge problem like this since 2002 so props to microsoft.

[Erik @ Dec 30th 2007 7:56PM]

Sweet, my borked comment makes no sense now.

It was at that davies person.

[nxtiak @ Dec 30th 2007 7:16PM]

You know what's crappy about this? Your Arcade games that you unlock after downloading the trial doesn't work! You have to be logged in to Live.
Only games I've outright bought (without downloading the trial) are working, and that's only like 3 games.

[Fred @ Dec 30th 2007 7:19PM]

Um...(cough, cough) bullshit!...(cough, cough)

[nxtiak @ Dec 30th 2007 7:21PM]

What's bullshit about it? All my arcade games that I've "bought" don't work except Joust, Wing Commander, Hexic 2, and Puzzle Quest. All others I've bought are in Trial Mode.

[UnnDunn @ Dec 30th 2007 7:44PM]

Only if you are playing on a different console than the one you originally bought the games on.

[nxtiak @ Dec 30th 2007 7:58PM]

Yeah too bad my launch 360 was RROD after 13 months, then It completely broke, I sold it on ebay then MS announced 3 year warranty on RROD! Most of my Live Arcade games was purchased with that 360.
I bought an ELITE, Transfered my stuff there, then 1 month after, that RROD, I got a new one from MS, so yeah. Still can't play my Live Arcade games without being connected.

[pwnetheus @ Dec 30th 2007 8:52PM]

I'm suffering from the same problem. As if it wasn't bad enough that my multiplayer games are crippled right now, I can't even enjoy my Arcade games.

[Fred @ Dec 30th 2007 7:17PM]

Holy Christ! What a bunch of pussies! Look Live is down, it sucks. It's not like there aren't a ton of people jumping through their own asses to fix the problem. It would be one thing of this happenend all the time, but it's pretty rare, and the Xmas ramp up is what caused it, I'm sure. Just because you have to go do something else for a couple of hours (or even a couple of days) you're basically paying $.13 a day. Suck it up, and read a book.

[nxtiak @ Dec 30th 2007 7:22PM]

I doubt more people got on Live this week than they did the day/week Halo 3 came out... and there was no outages then.

[Fred @ Dec 30th 2007 8:45PM]

Really? Because it seems logical to me that there WERE more people signing on then because how many people got Xbox 360s for X-mas and then fired up Halo 3 for the first time? Nevermind the fact that it's Live not just Halo.

[Kevin @ Jan 1st 2008 4:35PM]

Oh my GOD! Quit WHINING about Whiners. (whah, people wont stop complaining about not getting the service they payed for). All this bullshit about "get over it" and "suck it up" and shit, is shit that pushovers tell themselves to keep from confronting the problem. WE'RE NOT GETTING WHAT WE FUCKING PAID FOR. I frankly dont give a shit if the service cost 4 pesos, if I paid for it, then bottom fuckin line, it needs to work when I try to use it.

Telling people to "get over it and read a book" is layman terms for bendover and take it like a good bitch. Thats tantamount to ordering a $7 meal at McDonalds, and then the McDonalds employee hands you a only straw and tells "you thanks for your $7, now go read a book". Get the fuck outta here with that crock of shit.

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

Ya I know, seriously what gives, Im trying to play during the holidays and it just keeps on going on and off,

And when I try to go to marketplace, i get

Status Code: 8015000a

Maybe this is just the beginning.

As well if anyone wants to help me out with some Halo3 or COD4 achievements, add me
DIESEL1337

THnaks

[nxtiak @ Dec 30th 2007 7:54PM]

The only achievements you can get on COD4 are single player.

[DIESEL @ Dec 30th 2007 8:04PM]

I can give you my account info to do it lol.

[Zach @ Dec 30th 2007 8:26PM]

either way cod4 takes 20 years to get a game going, even then most of the time it drops us all.

[WilfBrim @ Dec 30th 2007 9:00PM]

I'd really like your help with some Halo stuff buy....wait a sec.., oh, yea. I can't fracking add you as a friend, because XBL keeps going down faster than somebody with the last name "Spears" on a first date.

[Dave @ Dec 30th 2007 7:27PM]

The problem I've got is that I don't have the latest update from Live, so I can't do ANYTHING at all on Live since every time I try to download the update it fails. Thanks Microsoft.

[Richard @ Dec 30th 2007 7:37PM]

I will give it 3-4 years and Microsoft breaks the DRM media file format for a new one with no firmware updates, yep you will have to buy another Zune. Anyone who buys a Microsoft product deserves the BS they get down th line.

[Gian @ Dec 30th 2007 7:38PM]

Yep...that's what they get for using Windows Server 2003. When people make the same mistakes over and over, what is it called? Stupidity.

[cranz @ Dec 30th 2007 7:42PM]

works a treat down under ;)

[Raven @ Dec 30th 2007 8:53PM]

Sure does, altho it took me a while to recover my xbox live gamertag, but now everything is just dandy :)

[Anthony @ Dec 30th 2007 7:42PM]

I'm sorry but Engadget is not a gaming site and this is getting tiring. Everyone with a 360 (myself included) is aware of the problems and the update from the previous post that is still on the main page. We did NOT need another post about this. Weren't three posts allowing people to claim Microsoft doesn't care enough?

I've been in outages like this at work and have seen the team put in hundreds of hours in a weekend trying to get it resolved, sometimes you're at the mercy of someone else though. Waiting for hardware, a hotfix, QA, etc.

I think Microsoft's biggest mishandling of this has been to change the status so many times, they should have just made a post stating that there will be issues throughout the holidays with no ETA.

To the users (on another thread) saying that Microsoft should have enough hardware to handle every single user in the world to login and play at the same time, the waste on an endeavor like that would be astronomical. The consumers at the end would pay those costs, one way or another.

[R0B3RT @ Dec 30th 2007 7:56PM]

Its a slow day and the writers are mad let them be mad they feed us news!!!!! dont anger them more!!!

[Covert @ Dec 30th 2007 8:01PM]

I was waiting for someone to point out the redundancy here...there are THREE posts about this on the front page and all say basically the same thing. Perhaps it would be more effective to post again when the problem is fixed for a few hours, rather than again when Microsoft makes a slight revision of their status statement?

But it's a Sunday, and there's no other news anyway. :)

[Dorv @ Dec 30th 2007 8:36PM]

Hit page down and go to the next story... Then, if you get a chance later, get over it!

[energyvortex @ Dec 30th 2007 7:45PM]

Sony forums must be down so all the fan boys and gals come here to bash, eh?

Here's a hint why sony's online thing isn't down; no one's using it.

XBL will get fixed and we'll find out what the problem was, and they'll probably kick out some points or a free month of service if enough of you whine and cry about it, but for now? why not play another game? Or get some sun? Maybe send an email, or God forbid, WRITE a letter?

Relax kids - XBL will be back when they're able to get it taken care of. And remember, they're losing MILLIONS in potential sales revenue while it's down. (That should make the sony-fan-boys a little happier)

[Maestro @ Dec 30th 2007 7:46PM]

How exactly does one lock down a hotmail account? Should I give it a firm talking to?

[epsilon343 @ Dec 30th 2007 7:46PM]

Oh no...you have to do something other than play video games all day. Sorry, but I'm not one to freak out when something that is out of my hands goes on the fritzs. I'm also sure all of you will put your money where your mouth is an cancel your XBL accounts when they don't give you a month free (for a week of intermittent downtime) or stuff your accounts full of MS points. Please...

[DIESEL @ Dec 30th 2007 8:02PM]

But its a paid service guys.

When you are late to pay your bill, you pay interest, thats what I want interest, I know we would all want some Microsoft points for the trouble, like they are losing customers more and more often, lots of people are moving away from PC and XBox to Sony or Apple, ext.

I know you guys are not satisfied but come on, we cannot move to a PS3, I have spent so much money on Microsoft, theres no way in turning back, hopefully they will have like a free game you can download like carcossone.

[Jeremy W @ Dec 30th 2007 8:09PM]

"When you are late to pay your bill, you pay interest, thats what I want interest"

How old are you? I'd bet you're not old enough to have a credit card.

[gletob @ Dec 30th 2007 10:46PM]

No when you don't pay your bill they take your stuff

[Jhongerkong @ Dec 31st 2007 3:12PM]

"Collateral" is the term I believe.

[Kyle @ Dec 30th 2007 8:02PM]

Why the hell is everyone so down on Microsoft? If there´s something that they could do to solve this faster, dont you think they would have done it? How good is for them for their flagship service to be down, how could that possibly help them? Wait for this to blow over but stop complaining about it.. geez...

[David Kimmerly @ Dec 30th 2007 8:17PM]

Kyle,

It's not that this is a problem all of a sudden, Xbox live has been shoddy since before Christmas. It's annoying, and we feel Microsoft should provide a better explanation and customer service to everyone who PAYS for this.

If we were PS3 owners and had this problem, we'd have zero leverage, but we're paying for this.

How about it, Microsoft?