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
posted Dec 30th 2007 6:59PM
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.
are we gonna get some kind of a credit for this? i haven't been able to get on for around a week!
what else is new?
The official scoreboard of the gaming systems:
PS3 Wii XBOX 360
21 20.93333 0 (Go XBOX Live!)
You get what you pay for... oh wait, you don't.
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.
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.)
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.
I really, really hope we get a free month or something. This is ridiculous.
Zune marketplace is out too. Does that mean we should get free songs?
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.
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?
@James
You do know Zune Marketplace has a subscription based "all you can eat" service, right?
@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.
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 .
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.
Sweet, my borked comment makes no sense now.
It was at that davies person.
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.
Um...(cough, cough) bullshit!...(cough, cough)
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.
Only if you are playing on a different console than the one you originally bought the games on.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
The only achievements you can get on COD4 are single player.
I can give you my account info to do it lol.
either way cod4 takes 20 years to get a game going, even then most of the time it drops us all.
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.
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.
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.
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.
works a treat down under ;)
Sure does, altho it took me a while to recover my xbox live gamertag, but now everything is just dandy :)
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.
Its a slow day and the writers are mad let them be mad they feed us news!!!!! dont anger them more!!!
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. :)
Hit page down and go to the next story... Then, if you get a chance later, get over it!
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)
How exactly does one lock down a hotmail account? Should I give it a firm talking to?
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...
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.
"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.
No when you don't pay your bill they take your stuff
"Collateral" is the term I believe.
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...
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?
Kyle, it's not that Microsoft is having problems that is pissing off the majority of people, it's that Microsoft has refused to answer the question of WHAT is going on. This leads me to believe that it is a major freaking problem, and Microsoft is worried that the if the true story was told, there would be even more hell to pay. The fact is, because of the problems with the service Microsoft and Xbox Live are taking a huge hit in the public's perception of their reliability right now, and that's something Sony will probably capitalize on. Surely if this were something that wasn't that big of a deal, as some are implying, Microsoft would speak out about it and appease the rapid gamers, rather than merely giving those BS system updates.
Isn't today an Xbox 360 All Nighter for Halo 3?
It says to take pictures and send them to Xbox Live with your stories
Wouldn't it be funny if a bunch of people sent pictures of the error codes and stuff they're getting and send them saying how your New Year's Eve/Christmas vacation was ruined because of Xbox Live being down?
Might as well delete this feed once and for all. You guys at endgadget have been posting some seriously suspect and weak rss info lately. You think this is NEWS that deserves the immediacy of an RSS update? please...
other people have commented better on the weaksauce you've been serving lately so I'll simply say - 'Bye'
/deletefeed
Oh and the best part about this crap from endgaget? It's like 24 hours LATE.
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/12/29/xbox-live-status-12-29.aspx
Xbox LIVE Status
You may have noticed that the LIVE service has been having a few issues over the past few days. 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. While we’re not done yet, I wanted to let you know that things are getting better each hour and that no one on the team is going anywhere until the job is done. Thanks for your patience.
Their sister site was late as well on a few stories, including the XBL problems. I knew about the Ron Paul march for a few days now and Joystiq just got around to posting it this afternoon.
energyvortex, actually, no. We have been in front of this news, with posts almost daily as the service has been up and down. This wasn't a late post, this was another post about yet another outage acknowledgement.
All i wont to say is this, when you pay for a service you have the right to complain. for the last 3 days i have had the xbox 360 problems.why can they not keep you informed via the xbox like they do when they inform us of future maintenance and keep us upto date every 4 hours come on microsoft pull your finger out . i cannot even play graw games cos it asks for an update which it then freezes and does not give the update. SPEND TIME MICROSOFT COMMUNICATING WITH THE PEOPLE THAT PAY YOUR WAGES IE THE CUSTOMER
Major Nelson has done a good job of keeping the community informed of the issues that have been plaguing the problem. Does he give specifics? No, but I don't know of any other company that has a community manager who is as accessible as Major Nelson is.
im not mocking major nelson as i do get some info off there frequently, what im saying is communicate via xbox live thru the adverts they put on on the dashboard or your messages not many people know about major nelson
lol
go outside geez
and no you should'nt get a free month you should get however many days it was down free
it not like theres genocide or anything goin on it the world I'm sure you'll all live
how much you expect for $4 a month or .13 per day (sally struthers says it's the same amount it costs to feed an african village for a month)
this is ridiculous...
Major Nelson is covering it on his blog and he has no answers either.
Well who cares about that anyway.
If you like DRM, well buy some stuff on your Xbox.
Well, I for one, would like to THANK engadget instead of crucifying them for keeping my up-to-date on this LIVE b.s. I've been able to play one game for over a week now and it's nice to hear that it's not our connection like I thought it was. As for those of you that have a problem with the constant LIVE articles... DONT READ IT.. there's plenty other stuff being written about on this site alone to complain about...
I seriously suspect all the people pretending this isn't post worthy are trolls working for Microsoft, as you seem to share the same attitude as Microsoft towards the problem. Which is, "Meh, wait until January 3, when the holidays are over, then our engineers will resolve the issue." And by resolve, they mean server demand will decrease and the issue will just go away.
Haha...good one...we just don't freak out over not being able to play video games.
Try telling your kid they cant watch Ratatouille like you promised...
its microsoft what are you exspecting
No, I didn't want to play Halo 3 until the wee hours of the morning or anything. But thanks anyway Microsoft!
No, I didn't want to play Halo 3 until the wee hours of the morning or anything. But thanks anyway Microsoft!
Where's all the people complaining about the Zune servers?
I got mine a couple weeks ago, and promptly got the Zune Pass. It was well into a week after I purchased my pass that I was actually able to download any music from it. Half the the time the error complained about my lack of internet connection, yet everything else was working fine. It was up for a day or two, and now down for a day or two.
For paid service, of any kind, this is unacceptable. I can understand the Zune issues more than the Live ones, I've never seen another Zune user, but Microsoft you've got millions of Live users, where is all that money going?
To the Xbox division, considering that they have just recently started making money off of every Xbox sold, but then the billions of dollars spent to cover warranties... Well, you see where I'm getting at. They are trying to make a profit- that or that money is going to an eventual upgrade.
I'd complain, but I didn't have problems with Zune Marketplace at all. I've really only had problems trying to download updates on Live, but that was temporary. I hadn't had my messenger contacts until an hour ago, but that was the worst of it.
Awesome. Maybe they're gonna have new stuff when ...
oh wait.
what is it with all these
MS haters
dont be mad because microsoft had a good buissness plan and is makin it in the world
if you had the chance you would do it to
pretty sad how the other consoles over their online for free and they don't seem to have any problems, but yet we pay for what, problems?
you pay for a much better integrated online play system. I can't say much about the Wii, but Playstation Online just isn't as good as XBL.. although not paying leaves little room to complain.
Lets just hope this is a Christmas surprise- can you say dedicated servers?
Yeah, I know I'm being a bit wishful, but that would totally kick ass if it were true.
Free month at least please!
Here is probably the best idea for MS. Take that 300 million dollars you are spending for an upcoming advertising blitz and invest it in your current devout consumers by adding the capacity you need to get XBL running properly. I would expect this from Sony because their online is free but come to think of it that has yet to happen to me on my PS3. I know MS realizes that they look like a bunch of A$$holes to the folks that just got 360's and live service over the holidays.
ROFL...playing PC games FTW
this is seriously bullshit (sorry for the language) but damn dude this is ridiculous i pay for a zune pass and for live.. and what do i get.. bullshit from Microsoft..
As much as I like my Xbox, this is pathetic. I was really getting into the multiplayer Call of Duty 4 when this started happening, so I guess I'm glad I re-bought the Orange Box this week when it went on sale on steam. Teamfortress 2 had a lot of lag on the Xbox anyway and no new Portal maps. If this kinda stuff keeps up (or more games are terribly laggy) I might just keep buying those PC games that'll run on my MacBook Pro instead of the Xbox, Friends List be damned.
These LIVE posts over and over again is just ridiculous. Really is it that slow that you have to keep posting the same story over and over again. I know it's not the first time. So now we can read though a bunch of cry baby Stories of LIVE having some problems. It's not the end of the world. You can still play your games. You can watch a Movie, Go outside, read a book, get laid, find something else to entertain you. I know that whole $.13 cents a day is such a huge amount of money your loosing daily. Get some friends with 360's and system link the systems together and have a good Local Multi-player experience. It's even more fun! I really hope we won't have yet another RSS feed on this until the problem is fully fixed.
As for Nintendo and Sony not having this problem. What games on the Wii are you Multi-playing? There's not much networking going on. The PS3, please, few users, few Online games, few services. Give it time, and wait until HOME is finally up and running and see what happens. I'm pretty sure MS is far better at networking then either Sony or Nintendo.
This may not be important to you, because you, like I, have other alternatives. But for some, they live in rural areas where the choices are not plenty. Or, have you ever taken the time to consider that their friends may live in distant places which inhibits them from linking systems together? When you pay for something, and it doesn't work, you are granted the right to complain. And when a company as BIG as Microsoft is, with billions of dollars in the bank, and you know you're going to have a moderate to high influx of new subscribers to your service, all the necessary precautions should be laid out to circumvent any problems from occurring. But you know that, right????
LIVE being down is not a good thing. Sure it's more important for some then others. My cable bill is $130 a month, so I'm putting things in prospective about LIVE. It's $4.17, maybe less a month. That's like 1/32nd of the cost of my cable bill per month. It's a whole .13 cents a day your loosing of LIVE being down. Or .005 cents per Hour. I don't think anyone plays 24 hours a day. Maybe your a huge online gamer, 12 Hours a day your on live. You really lost about .07 cents a day.
Yes, MS shouldn't have such a bad problem as this, and it doesn't look like a good thing to MS, but does there really need to be a new Topic on this subject 2 or 3 times a day? NO! This is because engadget is a Sony and Blu-Ray Supporter and anything making MS look bad and reposting it over and over again is a good thing for them.
Yeah it's annoying that it takes a while to log into Live, to get the Xbox booted up, whatever, but really, who cares?
All in all Xbox Live is more solid than my cable/internet (24 times the cost of Xbox Live) or my cell phone (12 times the cost of Xbox live) which cut a call on me whilst New Year's shopping in the local beer cooler.
In the end Microsoft will make good, you'll probably get some MS points 5 times the value of the prorated lack-of-service, so chill and just like, party or something on the 31st.
@james...
ummm, do you not know what zune marketplace is? one of the things they offer is a subscription thats like 10-15 a month for unlimited downloads... they just drm them so that if you stop paying you stop hearing...
either way... clearly something is wrong with microsoft's servers as a whole... but tbh... it happens... people cry to damn much... if going a week without xbox is causing you this much fuss you all need to reevaluate your priorities...
All these XBL and RRoD (among other hardware)issues. Someone with the time and resources really needs to start a class action suit against MS. It's the only way we are ever going to force them to be responsible.
They have your money already and everyone loves gaming and their favorite game, so they know you will be coming back for more. A good example of this is the gaming (gambling) industry. People lose all the time, but its fun (for some people addicting) so they keep coming back.
Given that most people are not likely to abandon their 360 and jump ship to PS, there is not much motivation for them (MS) to improve their product and/or service. They have you by the balls and they know it.
Imagine the headlines: "MS sued by hundreds of thousands of disgruntled gamers." Personally I would love to see that headline after all the shit that MS has put me through with my 360.
hahahahahaha this is just too funny!!! when will you microsoft supporters ever learn. A garbage company will always treat it's customers like garbage and give you garbage in return!! happy new year suckers