It's been ten days since we started tracking The Great Xbox Live Outage of Late 2007 -- ten days that the team at Microsoft has spent working 24/7, apparently unable to quash the issues affecting untold thousands (or millions) of users. Things
were supposedly looking better until earlier today when they apparently got worse again, resulting in Xbox Live's service status box making a decisive turn towards the apology side of the spectrum. Granted, the whole thing may seem a little gratuitous at this point, especially considering that the issues are still tagged as intermittent -- but at least our informal polling at Engadget HQ has improved, with some of us even able to get on and play a game (slow and sticky though it may be).
We suggest everyone get a little extra drunk tonight on behalf of all those at the Xbox NOC who will be ringing in the new year sitting at terminals so we can have our precious Live service back.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted Dec 31st 2007 7:52PM
sucks like a pornstar
Yay advocating getting drunk!!
good thing I got Assassin's Creed today instead of Halo, so I don't have to worry about the whole multiplayer lagging crap.
Yes because Halo is just a multiplayer game.
Oh wait what's this thing called 'Campaign' ?
yea but there's something called a good story line. plus i've already beat campaign , I was just buying it for the multiplayer, but that's down so there's no point for me to buy it right now.
To be honest Halo 3 sucks in everything, even online. I've gone back to playing Halo 2 online and CoD4.
Halo 3 - Finish the Hype (except for Halo 4 or whatever they are going to call it. Plus how did Halo 3 finish the fight anyway? I doubt he killed off all the flood.)
Oh and avoid Soldier of Fortune Payback like the plague. Talk about sucky. Took me 5 hours to finish it's that easy. Also stereotypes terrorists as being from either the middle east, Africa or Ireland.
Aye aye, Cap'n!
Another reason why I don't play online games. One-player games against the AI are ALWAYS reliable. That and the AI players don't tell you to "STFU, n00b!".
Until that AI character comes around that same corner in the same spot the 50th time in game. And they all have the exact same reaction speed and tactics.
Playing against AI is only fun for a few rounds. Then once you've aced them all, there's no fun in it anymore. They're just idiotic AI and it'll be a while before they develop adaptive AI skills for games that match playing against another human being.
AI players are always reliable, that's news to me. I would love to play Halo with bots all the time instead of my friends, great fun. I just think it's ridiculous that online gaming is somehow bad and your sure glad you don't do it, because of 1 week of problems. I've been doing this Xbox Live thing now for about 5 years, and I can only remember a very few times of outage. Still, they should give us all a free month.
agreed.... and AWESOME johnny 5 icon.
and as for playing online against your friends... that's great... I'd rather play against them in person... smoke breaks.. making them get you a beer. awesome.. and I don't have to pay 8 bucks a month and I get to be social.... oh yeah, and I don't have to deal with a 12 year old that's up past his bedtime with the voice filter on, screaming immature obscenities at me.
@Boostjunkie:
Immature gamers from across the globe, lag, and problems like cheaters and guys who are way better than you who is trying to just have fun are the real issue with online gaming. When I play Unreal Tournament 3, I have 15 other players with adjustable skill levels and who are 100% reliable. I don't even need to connect to my pitiful internet (Time Warner sucks ball sack) so no lag involved. 100% worry free gaming, whenever the hell I want. I don't need to wait for a certain server to have one extra spot or deal with the kid inputting the cheats or speaking in some prepubescent voice how he fragged my ass. I have fun and I don't have to wait or deal with a single human being - and GOOD AI provides a decent challenge.
Playing online is a pain in the ass - If I want to play with other people, I'll invite my real live friends over for a match. Otherwise, leave me the crap alone. This is not the reason why I play Single Player modes, this is just a reinforcement - network outages.
@ nosrednAneB:
Sorry, but a game coded with GOOD AI is unpredictable, and just as exciting as a human player. Ever played Unreal Tournament 3? Decent AI - Not so much in the Warfare mode, but really good in the Deathmatch modes. Not predictable in the least, and scalable to your own ability level. Also, I don't always appreciate a prepubescent boy screaming in my ears and a level of maturity usually reserved for middle school. Actually, I *never* appreciate that, so cross online gaming off my list completely - Thanks.
Oh yeah, and once again - no network or server outages to deal with if you're running a single player game. All issues you have are solely your fault.
what I don't get is how Microsoft claims that they've been working "24/7 to fix and address" the problem, yet Live has been up and down for 10 days. I guess there whole mention of working 24/7 is the time customer support spend handling the yelling of angry subscribers.
You would be surprised at how difficult some issues can be to track down and fix...
Intermittent issues like this could be caused by nearly ANYTHING (server hardware or software, switch or router misconfiguration or failure, NIC failure, bad patch cable, etc).
I have faced these types of issues and have some sympathy for the poor techs who are tracking this down. These issues are the WORST to track down and in many cases don't even show up on monitoring systems. It can take quite a bit of time to finally track down the "smoking gun" in these types of situations. Sometimes a series of malformed packets from a malfunctioning piece of hardware can take down or impair an entire network...
Shane,
sorry, but that's horseshit. A premium paid service like this should have redundant everything. If you have a data trunk or server that is being flaky, you switch to your standby and replace some hardware.
Downtime: minimal.
Customers: still happy.
Microsoft: fail.
@Dustin--
Redundancy or not, EVERY system is prone to faults. There is no such thing as 100% uptime. In fact, the more complex the system, the more points of potential failure.
My point is that even in well built systems with plenty of redundancy things can happen. Intermittent issues are even more difficult to track down and correct. In theory a well built network should isolate the issue but there are certain failure modes that can still take down almost any network.
Apparently you have never spent any time working in a data center and actually troubleshooting this type of problem.
Anyone who has been up for 240 hours shouldn't be allowed to maintain the Live servers.
I'm not sure what Xbox Live is, but I promise I'll follow your orders Mr. Computer and get extra drunk tonight, and if anything bad happens I'll be sure to say it's all Microsoft's fault.
nope, it will be engadget's fault xD
happy new year guys :)
TFSU leave engadget out of this whole mess lol.
I just bought a PS3 because of all this crap. I was perfectly happy with M$ before all this mess, but if I cant do what i bought the thing in the first place to do, then I'm going to where I can. Come to think about it, thats exactly why I have a mac...
Sure, you bought a PS3 with it robust online experience because of 1 week of Xbox Live problems, we really do believe you.
your not exactly loyal...
@cortes.john
I didnt say I was a fanboy. I'm a gamer and i really dont care what i play it on, just as long as I can play...
"I'm a gamer and i really dont care what i play it on, just as long as I can play..."
And Live being down is stopping you playing games how?
@Carbonize
"And Live being down is stopping you playing games how?"
Personal preference. I prefer to play games online with other people. I find that playing the same campaign mode over and over gets repetitive, boring, and unchallenging. The whole reason I got an xbox 360 a month after it came out was because of it's robust online gameplay. From that standpoint, right now xbox isn't doing what I need. Don't get me wrong, I'm not getting rid of my xbox anytime soon and it will still be my first platform of choice when its working. But now I have a backup console that allows me to do what I want - play games online (and now I can watch blu-ray movies, natch). I guess I should have clarified. Sorry for any confusion. Cheers Deers...
Don't worry about it. I was bored and am naturally a sarcastic ba***rd. I do find myself playing games again offline if they are good or just to get achievements. I mostly play Halo 2 (because 3 sucks) or CoD 4 when I don't want to play online. All Ghillied Up is a rocking level.
do I have to bookmark the Live indicator thingamajig to look at everyday from now on? Cause that's sad and I might want my money back or some form of repayment (free months etc.)
I think I'll have to get a lot drunk rather than a little in order to get this whole Xbox thing out of my mind.
I've been playing COD4 everyday since Christmas on xbox live here in Germany and haven't had any issues, neither have the 4 friends I usually play with. I guess it's just luck of the draw but it seems people in the US are the ones having all the problems.
Can engadget stop updating me on xbox live status? it is annoying to us all, but I can check the status page myself if I have any questions
They didn't listen to all the people complaining about the excessive iPhone coverage so can't see them listening to you on this one.
ever since you started reporting this, I havent had a single problem so maybe its not as big an issue as its being made out to be?
I'm sick and have nothing to do and yet I can't play COD4 or Halo3, the only 2 games worth playing on the 360.
I couldn't sign on for five minutes today... NO OTHER PROBLEMS with LIVE here in Oregon. Happily enjoying CoD4 for several hours today =)
$50 = Cheap for such a great service with VERY FEW interruptions... Only twice in 2 years for me.
(PS I have had my 360 for 2 years no problems ever)
You can't play them because Live is down? Funny because I put them into my 360 and they play just fine even when it's not connected to the internet.
I wish you'd mention that MS was locking down threads on the official forums mentioning compensation, and quickly shoving it under the rug. Xbox360fanboy reported it. I want every site to report on that, so people respect MS less.
If you respect them at all, you deserve all the problems you get with their garbage tech.
They haven't been able to get MSN Messenger up reliably for how many years? Why would XBOX live be any different?
"We suggest everyone get a little extra drunk tonight on behalf of all those at the Xbox NOC who will be ringing in the new year sitting at terminals so we can have our precious Live service back."
Are you saying that we should feel SORRY for them? You dumb asses are paying for this and you are getting crappy service! I don't pay for Playstation Network and I haven't had a problem yet! :-)
PS3 > Wii > XBOX 360
I have been playing Halo 3 solidly since the 22nd, and I even popped in CoD4. The only issue is some inability to matchmake in Halo. I am in the UK, I sent a message to a friend also in the UK and he sent he couldn't get on for a few days. Luck of the draw.
It has actually been more fun the last few days, all the rude and annoying people can't get on, maybe it is karma. My Name is Mattclarkie.
oh, has there been a LIVE downtime for the past 10 days? Doesn't that include xmas?
Sorry, I didn't catch that news - been too busy on WarHawk
Well, there have been some nights that some friends and I wanted to get online and weren't able to. It doesn't matter for me anymore now, since my 360 died yesterday.
The intricacies and difficulties of an overworked IT and Customer Call Service are not my problem.
The $400 hardware failed- because someone saved 3 bucks on a hold-down. The power supply for the $150 wheel failed- and was recalled. Now the core differentiator between Xbox and its competitors- Xbox Live (a fee-based service)- is fubar.
Microsoft needs to stand up and admit that they oversold, over-promised, and went to market with bleeding-edge capabilities and now they are screwed. "Subject to availability" language in a contract does not protect a contracted service from failure to deliver. Its time for class action lawsuits and congressional investigations (yup- congress... this is a multi-billion dollar problem).
If they were a dog, I would send them to the big farm to play, for ever and ever.
Ok, 4 days later and I STILL can't recover my Gamertag, which means I can't play on XboxLive-- ARRRGGHH!!! I expect free Microsoft points at the end of this.
I was looking forward to playing massive amounts of XBL during the holiday/end of year period. Too bad it didn't work out that way. Very annoying. Should have bought Mass Effect and spent time on that.
Still having problems....