We're well aware the first three words on the Xbox Live service status box are "up and running," but those issues are continuing to persist, and if our flooded tip jar and the Xbox Live forums are anything to go by, they're probably not just "intermittent". If you're (still) seeing issues, as always feel free to shout it out, as well as hit our poll so we can keep track of just how severe this stuff is. (So far, of those polled who've been trying to use Live, roughly 75% responded that they've been experiencing moderate to severe issues.)
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: Status now reads "up and running," zero caveats. Let's hope that's the way things stay! Thanks, xboxman.
posted Jan 1st 2008 6:21PM
Really, are you ever going to shut up about it. We all know.
Agreed.
The LIVE outages are annoying, but not as annoying as your constant reminder that they're "up and running" and what not. Seriously. We all know. You don't have to continue to tell us what we know, and leave a inaccurate, bitter image of Xbox to newcomers.
Yeah - that was about the tenth post about that in the last week.
If it's so darn important, then add a live ticker to the top of the page, or redirect users to the affiliated XBox Fanboy site for future updates, after the first story.
This is really getting annoying - and NO, I'm not interested in Xbox free feeds as well, thank you very much.
I think the real news here is that Microsoft is now planning on "doing something" for XBL Gold subscribers that are paying for the service and being inconvenienced by this perpetual outage: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/01/rumor-microsoft-doing-something-for-inconvenienced-xbl-member/
The quote: "we will definitely be doing something for our Gold members that weren't able to get online over the last week."
Looks like Microsoft isn't as heartless as we all thought.
Bullshit. Ipay $50 a year when I could go get a ps3 with psn for free. Seriously, before this whole episode I loved xbl and thought it was definitely worth the price. This has left a bad taste in my mouth. If this happened April 17th or some other random day, I would've been more ok with it. However ,to have it happen during the holidays, when I an play with my friends the most, its just horrible. There is no excuse for this. Psn has no sever outage, and their service is free. I don't care what ms says, this isn't justified at all.
Rv.. you do realize the reason the PSN servers don't go down is because no one uses it... because it freakin' sucks compared to Xbox Live.
no they don't go down because the game servers are run by the developers not sony, but still this is unacceptable
I think it's ridiculous too. And what pains me almost as much is people who try telling me to calm down and not get aggravated over it.
I have spent my spare time in the Christmas holidays staring at a blank lobby on Call of Duty 4, trying in vain to invite my friends in. When it does invite them (which is rare), it usually just kicks them back out again, or if by some miracle it puts you into a game, that usually times out or tells you "The Host Ended the Match", which is untrue.
Half the time, it tells me I need "an active network connection" whilst I'm on private chat to somebody (where do they think the bandwidth for this is coming from?).
I'm a massive fan of XBox Live but I'm really considering moving over to PS3. Their online play may not be as functional or as popular or indeed as much fun - but at least you can get a damned game on there.
$50 is a lot to pay for such bad service, but consider that I'm from the UK where it costs £40 - that converts to $80 for pathetic service and up to now, no sign of a fix or even the decency of an apology from Microsoft.
It's a real kick in the nuts.
mines been working greatish
I don't have a 360, but me and my friend were having issues playing guitar hero III online, and were having trouble downloading.
PSN FTW. I'm enjoying online Warhawk right now :).
i would much rather 'yahoo messenger's doodle' than your ps3...
Lmao that's actually true. Especially in comparison to Warhawk. Yahoo! FTW!
Yeah PSN won't fail since NOBODY uses it because there's nothing worth playing
xbox live is getting annoying it'll start working fine maybe for 1 game and then within 30 minutes it'll completely die on me.
I have been having problems for days now. I run cable and cant even connect with my sons DSL in the same town. For all I have seen that the problem is fixed, I have seen nothing but problems.
o dear o dear. Well this has gone on to long. I have asked for full refund for live and have taken my 360 back to wal-mart for full refund. PS3 here i come.
Got a Live membership for Christmas and I would love to be able to use it. I try to login and all I get is a private match or getting to a game lobby and then the lobby closes after its tries to form teams 2-3 times in COD4
Same issue here. I bought 360 the day after xmas, wasn't able to set up my live account until 2 days ago. COD4 worked on and off yesterday, but today, I can't even get a game to start. The game countdown starts with everyone ready to play, but as soon as it hits 0, "Game lobby has closed". I just want to shoot some people before I have to go back to school!
YEAH that happens to me too!!! its is so aggravating!
@ hexoDAT64
excel*** not accell
the differences in 360 CoD4 and PS3 CoD4?
ive played both, the 360 is crisp and clean and the PS3 gameplay is bright and washed out (to mask the shoddy graphics), i dont want to have to squint to see me shooting someone.
you can see the PS3 games do this alot, the brightened and washed out images.
try to imagine gears of war on the PS3, you know it couldnt handle it.
in regards to the PSN and Xbox LIVE..
LIVE has an incredible amount off active subscribers versus PSN. a system-wide crash over a sustained period is almost expected, the fact it happens so rarely is calming. props for M$ if they give out something from the inconvenience.
"I just want to shoot some people before I have to go back to school!"
Aww, bless.
@kamandriat
thats for pointing my silly typo, I don't know how I put that
Anyways, this was the typical fanboy response that I expected. First of all, the graphics are roughly the same, but you know what, my 360 and PS3 are both calibrated on different settings. There isn't a simple setting that make everything good, I'm sorry if that disappoints your fanboy ego. I have a LIVE subscription as well as a PSN account, an yes LIVE is better, but that doesn't mean the PSN sucks and is unplayable. I love my 360 and my PS3, but I don't have to put one down to bring the other one up like you do.
I have been having mostly minor connection issues with Live. Some friends have told me they didn't receive my invites but I had no problem getting theirs. Played/playing Call of Duty with no issues.
$50 a year for XBoxLIVE???
Waste!!!!
Get PS3! It's FREE!
Xbox Live is by far better and worth the $50 for the year. Very few times is the server suffering from issues and this is the first time that something like this has happened in a long time.
First of all, I've got both a 80GB PS3 and a 360...Playstation's online is nowhere near as good as X-Box Live so paying $50 for it isn't a waste.
I even get the XBOX DIAMOND CARD for discounts and coupons at over 50 retail locations: including Meineke, disneyland, Seaworld, six Flags,etc,etc which more than make up for the cost of $50 a year.
Yeah except there are fewer people playing PS3 online than there are Xbox Live outage posts on Engadget.
I agree, instead of paying for 5 years of XBox Live, why don't you just pick up a Wii?
Seriously guys, the PSN is not that bad. There are plenty of people to play. If you are playing COD4, does it really matter if there are 200,000 or a 1,000,000 people logged on? I have both, and yes the PSN lacks many things that Live does such as private chat and such, but it accells at alowing you to play online without paying. Isn't that what its about, the games?
If you can really point out what is much different then playing COD4 on PS3 vs. the 360, then good for you!
PS: I already know this will get low ranks, but someone has to say it....and yes I have a 360 and a PS3
"this is the first time that something like this has happened in a long time."
Then it wouldn't be the first time if it happened a long time ago...
4 Days later and I STILL can't recover my Gamertag, which means no XboxLive for me--- ARRRGGHH! Just in time for the holiday weekend, too, when I'm not working or in classes. I expect Microsoft points at the end of this...
ppl you should all know a group of highly trained monkeys were dispatched to fix the problem.
I've seen large companies fall to their knees waiting for their moneys to fix their problems and each time we say it’s should be an easy fix it takes longer that anyone thought.
I don’t think they need to report on every glitch that happens, its technology crap happens, ppl are dispatch to fix it and it will get fixed.
How old are you, 10? You're comments are very demeaning to those who work in the world of support and have to work all hours to resolve service issues.
m8, it’s a joke, take it easy, it’s a new year don't take everything so seriously.
I don’t think you get it.
we are highly trained monkeys (do you get it, Darwin, evolution, monkeys), we are the best of the best.
Take it easy m8, It’s a joke, it’s a new year don't take everything so seriously.
I don’t think you get it, we are highly trained monkeys (do you get it, Darwin, evolution, monkeys), we are the best of the best.
I don't think Charles Darwin even gets it. :S
it s not about getting a ps3 it s free or xbox live ms was ready for those 5 thounsands xbox sold on christmas and black friday i just dont believe they did not know with the price drop and everything that more people was gonna buy 360 and ps3 you wont have anyproblem why cause aint nobody playing that shit i rented cod4 for ps3 and no one was playing so fuck off 360 live issues
Huh?
...is that English?
360 is awesome.. but i cant stand MS anymore. I've been through 3 360's already 2 had RROD and another I kept getting the unable to read disk error. And now I can't even play Halo because Live is down..
My PS3 hasn't had any issues and all the PSN issues seemed to be tied to only individual game servers (like Warhawk initially). But I'll admit, Live is better than PSN. Sony is new to the whole online concept and they've been trailing behind Live for quite some time now. Although.. I do like the PSN games you can download for like $5.. They're pretty neat and entertaining.
And for the record.. COD4 is a pretty popular game for the PS3, at any given time you can go online and you're pretty much guaranteed to find any game mode filled with players. Most of the time the rooms are full.
"You get what you pay for" - Major Nelson, His comments on the Playstation 3's online infrastructure made in his podcast in recent months
That rotten Toshiba ad up there prevents from voting the first comments. Remove it!
Toshiba ad? Oh, right there are some pretty god-awful ads around.
You should look into AdBlock Plus for Firefox.
Well my XBL is still down, and in the mean time my Xbox 360 suddenly decided to read a few of my games as DVDs and display the message, "To play, insert disc into an xbox 360 console"
Xbox sometimes thinks my copy of Orange Box is a DVD.
And I just had this shit repaired.
how did u fix it?
Actually, my 360 has started doing the same thing. I'm thinking it has something to do with LIVE now...
thats what i thought at first but i called Microsoft and they just told me to send it in. its too bad they don't have an advanced replacement plan like Nintendo, u know where they send you a brand new working console, then you send the broken one back after you receive yours. It takes 2-3 weeks for the repair...
Try this:
1) Put the game in while xbox is in horizontal position.
2) if you get a disc read error, take out the disc, and switch the xbox to the vertical position while it is still turned on. Put the game back in.
3) If you still get the disc read error, take out the disc, switch the xbox to the horizontal position while it's still turned on, and try again.
My friend had this problem for about two weeks, and it would almost always work after the 2nd or 3rd time we switched the position.
Time to start thinking about investing in an alternate game system (ps3)
Once you manage to unlock the large matches, 18 player games fill almost instantly for COD4 :D
on the whole, xbox 360 hasn't been a great product for me. i'm on my third box and my cables needed replacement (it took months to replace everything via their customer service) and my live service isn't fully working now, nor has it been in the past two weeks. i'm not saying there are better alternatives out there, but that doesn't mean that this is a quality product.
TO FLASHPOINT You obviously are a 360 fanboy for saying that and u obviously dont have a ps3. IDK why anyone says ps3's online is bad. Its actually pretty faster than 360's at this point and when LIVE is working its still basicaly the same. You go on the game you go online and you play thats what you get wit ps3 online same thing wit 360 friend invites too.If you thing paying 50 dollars for xbox live is so much better than having the same thing free on ps3 then just lay of the depression pills bro. ANyways this is ridiculous im trying to play CoD4 and the 50 dollar service isnt working ? F'innggg fix the problem microsoft you screwed me over already the only reason i bought the system was for Halo 3 and thats basically not workin the well either. I WANT MY MONEY BACK no pointsss or wutever the hell
I think there are major differences between the two services. Most people I know who own both consoles can see that Xbox Live offers a quality that the PSN doesn't quite have down yet, but again, that's due to the level of investment in previous years. It's not saying that PSN won't catch up but I don't think there's a point in people arguing about it so much. If you think that they're the same then fair enough that opinion doesn't affect the fact that I prefer it the other way. Discussion and debate are great but I hate when it gets too serious. This is just the kind of inter-console-owner war mongering that this constant, "Xbox Live is still down," blogging creates. Are you going to post every day when Xbox Live is running, since you're so used to it being the other way, Mr. Block?
I just realised I said, "I prefer it the other way." Please don't take that the wrong way... or take ME the wrong way, for that matter. :P
I could see theres some minor things that make the ps3 online lack a little like how you can't have the ingame thing to see where ure friends are doing what there on and stuff like that but people are just being fanboys when they say that it sucks u know? ITs not bad but its not perfect yet its a year old let it grow to perfection
Four of my friends and I have had zero issues since Christmas and we've been on a lot!
what games are you playing that you aren't having problems? I had to go all the way back to perfect dark to find a game that works on live with out and issue.
this is really not acceptable 11 days, if the service was free i could understand but come on its not like they are not getting paid or something
No service is perfect, they are gonna have problems sometime in their lifetime. This is the first thing that I can think of that has been severe in the 5 years it has been around.
I agree.
I cant even sign on to live when i turn my xbox on.
This is ridiculous! 8 million subscribers to live and yet 11 days of inconsistent play? I cant even play cod4 thank god I got assassin's creed to fall back on since this damn live service can barely even function even after I've thrown my 50 bucks at it.
Too bad Assassins Creed is garbage
I swear to god, if there's gonna be a report for each day that Xbox Live is down I'm done with this website completely.
It's been pretty ridiculous today. The worst is Live not finding any games or just dropping the connection s halfway through matches on Halo3 and TF2.
Oh and the lag on TF2 today? HORRENDOUS.
O and for the poeple saying not to keep showing how xbox live isn't working are just little fairies or really rich... I say keep showing every1 that there is a big problem here and maybe it will slap microsoft in the face to make them actually do something about this LIVE problem.. and give us our money backkkkkkkk peace bras
I've been playing on Live since the beta. The only times that there have been issues like this have been linked to a surge in the number of players from what I've noticed. Considering when this issue started (I didn't start seeing it until Christmas Eve) I'm guessing it's another surge situation. I had issues on three of the past 7 days and the only day that was unplayable was Christmas.
I see all of negative MS press on Engadget but what about the PS3 40GB failure rate that was dismissed? This site seems to say otherwise with the number of posts reporting problems:
http://news.filefront.com/rumor-40-gb-playstation-3-has-high-failure-rate/
I did a search for the story on Engadget and nothing came up. If you're going to hold feet to the fire, roast them all evenly.
hahahahha bro ure a fanboy obviously...anyways about the failure rate...it was a rumor annndd it obviously isnt correct considering that my friends have 40 gb ps3's and there's not a problem on one of themmmmmm...if u find a statement from any other site that isnt a RUMOR clearly made by a360 fanboy like you then let me no brooo but thanks...anyways u having problems on only 3 days out of these is great and i want to say u are very lucky cause u have games that poeple don't play that much...try to go on call of duty for right now and join my game Black0ut93 its a zero not an o...if it works i will personal give u 100 dollars if it doesnt than it will be 4 days then hahaha
Fanboy? Not even close. I've always taken a neutral stance when it comes down to hardware. When I got the RROD on my launch day 360 in January of last year, I was just as hard on MS as any Sony fanboy had ever been. I've only had one failure unlike other people, but, it happened. I don't like Sony, but, that's just my opinion to which I am entitled and I don't let it cloud my judgement when I read or post about problems. Search Engadget for negagtive Playstation press articles. Think about all of the issues that you know of and search for them, then do the same for the Xbox.... All I'm saying is that the media should report it all from all camps and not be a propaganda machine.
Your friends have 40GB PS3s that work, that's great and I guess as you said about my XBL gaming, they must be lucky. I only personally know 3 people that bought 40GB PS3s and they've all been returned. Two traded and bought 360s and the other bought an 80GB PS3 because he already has a 360 and the 80 to this point is fine. I don't have a PS3 because there aren't enough exlusives to make me want to pay the premium. That plus that fact that I don't think that PSN is going to touch XBL this time around, Sony is too new to the concept.
You comment about me playing games that no one else plays..... you don't know me. I've been playing Halo and have yet to see the population drop below 200K. Typically I see over 300K while I'm on, far from no one.
If you think that it's obvious that I'm a fanboy, you may want to take a class in deductive reasoning, it's not your strong point. Read the posts on the site that I linked, I'm zs450 out there. I have my preference, but, I'm far from a fanboy. I honestly like a strong fight between consoles because that makes them work harder to put out better games.
Good Ol' Microsoft at it's best Yet Again! Microsoft FTL...
Gamertag: Reaper 89
Trying to get online to play COD4 and actually put the $60 gamertag a year to Use, Wish me Luck!
Question: i cant recover my gamertag (no duh). but i do want to play some games on my own, if i play some games on another profile i have (on my 360, not live account) can i still get the achievments that i got on the other profile (if i use a save or something??)
I'm starting to get a lil upset about this. I had scheduled my oral surgery for xmas break (because of no school, and was able to get time off work). I was all set, purchased a 32in LCD TV and picked up a few games and planned to spend the time playing Xbox LIVE... but now I'm screwed... ARG!!!
I contacted them via email and got the nice scripted response...
"Please try to connect to Xbox Live at a later time and when you try to sign in to Xbox Live, please make sure that the Xbox Live server status is up and running."
well DUH... but when will that be?
anyone try calling them and get any points or a refund or anything out of them? If so, post it here.
Migel,
That comment wasn't intended to be in reply to you, it was just a reply.
What a surprise, another post on Engadget about XBL...
I'm pretty sure MS isn't happy about this either because this only hurts their image, regardless of how robust and reliable the service is 99.9% of the time. I'd be a little more open to hearing people ask for some sort of compensation, preferably in the form of MS points. But at the end of the day, complaining doesn't do shit to get it fixed, especially if it was an easy fix.
As for the constant "up and running, but it's not" comments, just because YOU can't connect doesn't mean others can't either.
ya call of duty 4 is horrible but if your like me and dont want to stop playing i have a trick for you that seems to work everytime. Set up a private match and invite your friends, if you dont have may friends online jsut invite random people that youve played before, its worked everytime with great connection so try it out.
Wow, Ryan B is an early candidate for D-Bag of the Year already.
Wheres the poll?
I was having moderate problems yesterday but I had a workaround where I would test the network setting so it said i could connect to live, then insert game (don't try signing in with guide button or from dashboard) and just quickly get to a multiplayer game now. Now, you can get into a game and everything but you get kicked out of every lobby. I was in one game online, match ended and before we went back to lobby my 360 froze. i reset everything and havent been able to get in a match since.
the xbox forums needed use i guess
Yeah, its been working for at least 2 days for me ... even had mutliplayer Rockband session going on last night.
Microsoft better give us something like free points.
Just wait until tomorrow, when the demand for it goes down. For many people, including me, Christmas break will be over. And that means not as many people will be playing as often.
I am sure with the mount of xbox's bought this holiday and being hooked up all at once could have caused too much traffic. Maybe they had to buy more bandwidth and this takes time.....I am just guessing but that seems like the obvious problem. I have been a user since xbox live was in eta and this is the first major outage for any length of time. 1 outage of this length in 4 or 5 years is not too bad.
Mine was pretty good, even through the early goings of the "tough times," but yesterday and today it's been bad. I just can't connect consistently. Weird.
ryan b is the mannnn... o and im MIQuel btw idk why it changed my name
today was my first day that i can say
XBL was working well.....
I was getting PWND all day though :(
Long Island NY
Mine has been AWFUL.
I've sent the Xbox Live Team a stinking letter.
I tried downloading '300'. It has refused to work and my points have been drained.
Both COD4, and Halo 3, have been dire at best.
All of the blades with Xbox Live-reliant features embedded take a good few minutes to load.
I cannot start any type of chat with any of my friends.
When playing COD4, it PERSISTANTLY displays 'Connection Interrupted' and freezes my Xbox.
After all of this, it is IMPERATIVE that I turn my 360 off, and back on, but inly to encounter the same errors.
Why is MS being such a tease?
Just turn it off TOTALLY until it is fixed!
To people saying that what we are paying isn't much... that ISN'T the focus point. It's a morality issue. We are still PAYING for a 'service', which quite frankly, doesn't exist.
And this IS NOT the first time this has happened.
Nice work Engadget for keeping track with this!
I cant even log in... it all started around christmas. It was ok then but this is ridiculous!!!!!!! I am mostly on line on thpg because i have beaten the game and i have a gold membership... $45.00 Down the drain. I also saw that i could download Halo 1 on the marketplace so i did but 1% into the download xbox live went out and now the download is pending! I was so happy i was finaly going to get to play the original halo game because i have only played halo 3, but before i downloaded this (or atleast attempted to) I invited al my friends over expecting the download to go over well but i was wrong an it made me look like an idiot! Thank you Microshaft!!!
Microsoft sent me a replacement console and now I haven't been able to recover my gamertag for 6 days straight... they owe a refund. This is just ridiculous.
Man this stinks
Wow, people are complaining that Engadget is reporting the NEWS? Even threatening to QUIT READING Engadget unless they stop talking about the problems with XboxLive? Thats brand loyalty :p
Look, I'm sure you all want to protect Microsoft and the Xbox360s reputation-thats what fans do. But that doesn't mean Engadget should pretend everything is fine, because everything isn't fine. One article a day or so isn't going to "bring down" the Xbox.
For the record, we've had problems logging in and staying logged in to Live since Christmas day. I don't expect nor demand any kind of rebate from MS (its only $50/year, and its only been a couple weeks), but I'm glad Engadget is covering this, so I know its not just my network connection/system.
XBL WTF????!!!!!!!!111one and becauseof this I have experienced a bug in PORTAL. for me, when i was playing and my xbox became suddenly disconnected from live, when i tried to reconnect through the xbox blade, the game hangs...
same here!
UN....Believable!!!
FINALLY, after a gazillion years of trying, my xbox is back to normal
OH NO IM OUT $1.50!!!!
WHY IS MS TRYING TO RUN ME INTO THE GROUND
WHOOPTY DOOOOOOO
Well it may say up and running, but I have been trying to recover my gamertag for about 2 hours now with no luck. It times out downloading the privacy / terms of use, or when downloading my gamer profile and says XBOX Live is not available, try again later.
Oh, and to those of you whining about the coverage of the outage, just don't read it. Geez. Does it really take so much effort to scroll by a story that you feel necessary to click in to it and complain about it? Reminds me of iphone coverage.
No one is standing over you with a gun to your temple forcing you to read the story. Just don't!
Oui
Really don't understand the whole PS3 vs. 360 Debate. That's not what this post is about.
Personally, I prefer my PSN over my Live. But you know what, comments like this one are not really needed. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.
This situation reminds me of Apple and Microsoft but instead of Microsoft playing catch-up with Apple in Mp3 player market, Sony is the one playing catch-up with Microsoft in the online gaming market.
I'm still having problems playing online. It worked for a few hours earlier today, but now it's all messed up again. Microsoft better speak soon on what they're going to do to compensate for the bad service.