Of all the weeks to have a major outage of your online gaming service, the holiday and vacation weeks of Christmas and New Years may have to be the worst -- which Microsoft has
learned all to well over the last ten days. We know you've heard plenty about it here at Engadget -- but that's really only because
Xbox Live has had such a solid track record over the years, and we're all just as surprised as you. But while it's perfectly clear users have been seeing these issues, it's still unclear exactly how "intermittent" those issues really are. Care to let us know how you've fared in our wholly unscientific poll?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
DWells55 @ Dec 31st 2007 9:23PM
I've had problems signing on and getting games, it's really hit or miss. Once I'm on (usually late night), it seems to be alright though. My brother, however, hasn't been able to recover his account for the past week, meaning no Live whatsoever.
Dan Z @ Dec 31st 2007 9:27PM
I've been fine all week up until a few hours ago where I couldn't logon. Just tried it again and it seemed to be all good.
Sucks for people who can't logon altogether though :(
James Scott @ Dec 31st 2007 9:30PM
My 360 died so I was only actually having problems with XBox live for 1 day.
My only issue is all those poor saps who got 360's for the holidays and activated their 24hr-1month trials arent going to be able to try it out. Lets not even start on those chumps paying monthly.
Hung @ Dec 31st 2007 9:43PM
I've had to spend time with my family. And on New Years, to boot!
DAMN YOU MICROSOFT!
OBM @ Dec 31st 2007 9:43PM
Yesterday seemed to be the worst, it could say I was signed in but stick on the dashboard loading up friends, messages, etc. Also couldn't get on to the marketplace, let alone download something I wanted watch. Seems to be working better today but matchmaking seems to be messed up and a lot of people getting disconnected out all day.
Mike10010100 @ Dec 31st 2007 9:48PM
HAHAHAHA!
Central servers are for losers!
Go computer gaming!
strider_mt2k @ Dec 31st 2007 10:27PM
I was playing ET:QW ALL DAY today on my PC with zero hassles.
Well...except once I ran out of coffee, but that was remedied easily enough. :)
Sorry to hear about the hassles online folks.
Greg @ Dec 31st 2007 9:58PM
Sorry for your misfortune, but I'm laughing my ass off, enjoying my free, fully functioning, PSN.
... lol
But, erm, I'm sure it's just a red ring of death or a BSOD on their servers XD
OBM @ Dec 31st 2007 10:13PM
:( I feel for you, it must be lonely on there, no games to play, no people all on it because of sucky sales. Poor PS3 Fanboys, there there, atleast you have your precious blu ray :)
Greg @ Dec 31st 2007 10:26PM
You kidding? I've been playing the shit out of Resistance and UT3 (you know, you might get that one day on your xbox... maybe...)
Not to mention Uncharted.
You seem pretty offended.
I'm sorry, who's the fanboy now?
OBM @ Dec 31st 2007 10:36PM
You mean resistance the GoW rip off and UT3 that Sony bought the timed rights to because they had nothing else to offer on the PS3? I'm sorry, didn't mean to open pandora's box. Run along, back to your PSP UI and 'so last generation' non-vibrating controller with extra 'triggers' if you want to call those half assed buttons that lol!
mcatrage @ Dec 31st 2007 10:50PM
You both are annoying fanboys.
Tim Ficke @ Dec 31st 2007 11:30PM
You have GTA too oh wait...
Rockstar realized Xbox is better so now we have it. We now also have Guitar Hero.
Greg @ Jan 1st 2008 1:01AM
Ah, I should have figured that most people reading this would be MS fanboys.
I'd just like to say that this could happen to any system... but it happened to the system plagued by the most problems. It's like the lead brick that was added to the others...
Hey, how much are you paying for the downtime anyway?
Riley @ Jan 1st 2008 3:17AM
it's 1/3 of a month, so only about $1.50 so far
live really isn't that expensive, it's only $50 a year
Jorge @ Jan 1st 2008 10:42PM
OBM. There, there. If saying that will make you feel better about your cash going to waste over the great service Live is, we the Sony fanboys won't be offended. I know 5.5 millions aren't the same as 13, and I'm glad you realize unless we reach 13, 5.5 million souls won't ever be enough for online gaming. Well, what can we expect from a free service?
Oh no, not mediocre, but excellence. 24/7.
Greg @ Jan 1st 2008 2:07PM
So... in 2 years, you've paid more for your xbox, for less features... never mind, I won't get into that.
I wonder if they're going to refund you what you deserve. You paid for this, you should get that back.
superaktieboy @ Jan 1st 2008 3:33PM
@OBM
well the only thing good about xbox 360 is xbox live + more good games than on ps3 (well some of them).. and well i'd have finished Halo 3, Mass Effect, BioShock (etc.?) already in single mode by now.. so the only thing left would be online .. well... if it worked lol
so yes Greg is right about "But I'm laughing my ass off, enjoying my free, fully functioning, PSN." although i do feel sorry for you ..
now tell me who's lonely xD
BigD @ Jan 1st 2008 7:43PM
It's sad that all the other console owners are reading this...lol
Is it really that lonley out there in PS3 world.
Here in OZ, costs about 22 cents a day, I think I'll manage.. although, some free maps for COD4 would be nice :)
Greg @ Jan 1st 2008 7:52PM
It's not the least bit lonely. How ignorant could you be? I have a lot more interest in the games on the ps3, not to mention I have plenty of people to play with online. So I suppose these are nothing but the sour nothings of MS fanboys.
Jagannath A @ Dec 31st 2007 9:58PM
steam
superaktieboy @ Jan 1st 2008 3:34PM
wish i had steam.. but my problem is my pc :'( ARGH I REALLY NEED A NEW ONE :'(
stephenbratz2 @ Dec 31st 2007 10:00PM
Seriously, how many of these are we going to see? Two in one day today, two in one day yesterday. We get the point, it is down. I have not had time to play online in the past few days, so I have not run into it on LIVE, but I have run into the problem with the Zune marketplace. I am not happy about it and I am not making excuses for them, but this is getting a little excessive on your part. Where are the daily posts reminding us that Apple has not fixed keyboards or monitors? Where are the daily posts about the PS3 not properly handling TrueHD?
A web site owned by a company owned by AOL - a one time major competitor of Microsoft. It is starting to make sense now...
Jhongerkong @ Jan 1st 2008 11:45AM
En-apple
Bassir @ Dec 31st 2007 10:10PM
Where's the option that says I don't have an Xbox with without being obnoxious?
Mike @ Jan 1st 2008 1:52AM
There's also no option for "I played once in the past 10 days, and it worked fine". I ended up saying I haven't seen my family in a week even though I spent the whole week with them.
Neebs @ Dec 31st 2007 10:10PM
Not going to vote, but in the same city:
One of my friend's has great service and has not called and complained and I've not seen a problem
Another says his (and I saw) goes in and out.
Kevin @ Dec 31st 2007 10:56PM
I am not making this up. I have not been affected because I got RROD right before the outage and haven't had a chance to be affected. Silver lining I guess :/
Greg @ Jan 1st 2008 1:04AM
MS is waiting for you to buy a new one, that's how much they love you ;)
stephenbratz2 @ Jan 1st 2008 3:40AM
@Greg:
Just like all those BD companies are expecting everybody to buy a new standalone BD player just so they can get a 1.1 profile player. Then again for 2.0, then again for 3.0, then...
As somebody who proclaimed in an older post "I don't use a single MS product. Not only do I get along great, but I save a lot of money" you sure do have a lot to say about something that you do not have any first hand experience with. For a site where people whine about not making comments about something they do not use, you make a lot of comments about Microsoft.
superaktieboy @ Jan 1st 2008 3:37PM
@stephenbratz2
OR... you just buy a ps3 ;)
kevan @ Dec 31st 2007 11:28PM
I called and canceled my account for this month and had them reimburse me. I'll get back on after it's all sorted out....maybe.
Ivan421 @ Dec 31st 2007 11:40PM
I've gotta agree with Stephenbratz. We get the idea. MS is having problems with its servers, and they're obviously not minor problems at that. However, it doesn't do anyone any good to continuously post "They're up", "No, they're down" over and over. I'm guessing MS will have some sort of formal statement about the problem after it's resolved. Until then, I think we can all understand what "intermittent connectivity" is...
john.keir @ Dec 31st 2007 11:49PM
I'm about to remove engadget from my rss reader simply because I'm sick of seeing this same story 300 times a day.
We get it already.
calsurfer18 @ Jan 1st 2008 12:21AM
engadget: why do you always try so hard to make your poll options funny? you always seem to fail! haha
has128 @ Jan 1st 2008 12:59AM
I think Engadget is doing great job covering this story, its a big story, and millions are affected... we are paying money for god sake!
Anyway, even xbox360fanboy is brining up this subject every now and then for the last week.
superaktieboy @ Jan 1st 2008 3:43PM
also good for the visits *laughs evil*
nah just joking.. but your idea: not really true coz it just keeps repeating it self.. and again more fanboyism (sometimes looking at myself xD)
zomg
SeanG @ Jan 1st 2008 1:27AM
Why no poll category for PC gamers? First we have to deal with that dingy corner in game stores we've been relegated too and now endgadget forgets us? Hmmph. Well Eve has worked all week just fine. As long as you have a boot.ini that is......
rando @ Jan 1st 2008 2:00AM
Consider yourselves lucky to have an XBL to complain about. I got the red ring of death 2 weeks ago and am eagerly waiting my brand new (refurb) 360. I'm starting to get the shakes, I need my Xbox fix.
chris @ Jan 2nd 2008 12:55AM
in same boat
Ratchet the Lombax @ Jan 1st 2008 3:29AM
Poor xbox360 will it's trouble ever be over? First it's the RROD issue and now Live is having issues. Don't get me wrong I love my 360 as well as my Wii and PS3 and so far I haven't got a RROD and since I don't use Live I can't really complain if it's down or not since it doesn't bother me either way. But I do find it interesting that the free services (Wii/PS3) work fine but the one that charges you has all the problems. Maybe it's because more people use Live than the others. I understand that numbers mean a lot but still there has to be at least a million or so users online with the Wii and PS3 if not more. I know that isn't the same numbers as with Live but it's still a lot of people and come on no glitches or outages what's up with that?
mattclarkie @ Jan 1st 2008 5:23AM
Status is Up and Running. Claims to be fixed.
Bryn @ Jan 1st 2008 5:24AM
My XBox 360 has been with Microsoft since the 21st Dec (3 red lights) so I've had a total XBox outage, never mind XBox live ...
Ty @ Jan 1st 2008 9:46AM
The general consensus by almost everyone involved is that xbox live is better than psn. I have a ps3 but I'm asking this because I really don't know. But what makes xbox live better? What can you do on xbox live that you can't do on psn? I have never picked up an xbox controller and I really don't know.
Dre @ Jan 1st 2008 9:53AM
Xbox Live is being transferred to Electronic Arts.
rodsky @ Jan 1st 2008 11:01AM
OH NO IM LOSING VALUABLE CENTS IVE INVESTED IN XBOXLIVE THIS PAST WEEK, BETTER ASK FOR ALL MY MONEY BACK CUZ IM GETTING RIPPED OFF, YOU KNOW CUZ NO OTHER SERVICE I SUBSCRIBE TO FAILS...
Blah @ Jan 1st 2008 12:17PM
There needs to be a "I am unaffected by the Live outage because my Xbox RRODed and so I sent it back and then the replacement RRODed the day after it arrived so I sent THAT one back and I haven't actually had a functioning Xbox since like September" option. Farking Microsoft's crap build quality...at least I don't have to pay to send it back.
Blah @ Jan 1st 2008 12:17PM
There needs to be a "I am unaffected by the Live outage because my Xbox RRODed and so I sent it back and then the replacement RRODed the day after it arrived so I sent THAT one back and I haven't actually had a functioning Xbox since like September" option. Farking Microsoft's crap build quality...at least I don't have to pay to send it back.
Andrew @ Jan 1st 2008 1:14PM
"learned all TOO well"
tiuk @ Jan 1st 2008 1:28PM
I've had problems getting on all week, once I'm on I'll usually eventually be able to find a game but sometimes it takes a long time. Tried numerous times to recover my gamertag on a friend's console and haven't been able to.
As a fun aside, my 360 gave me the three red lights last night, so assuming MS fixes these Live problems in the next 2-3 weeks, I should be fine and dandy once I get it back.