Microsoft's free Arcade title not enough, still hit with lawsuit over Xbox Live outages
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 5th 2008 11:02AM
posted Jan 5th 2008 11:02AM
We can't say that we're shocked to hear this -- you know, considering just how long those Xbox Live holiday blues went on -- but Microsoft is indeed being slapped with a class action lawsuit over the aforementioned outages. Reportedly, a trio of angered Texans are alleging that Microsoft didn't abide by its own contract when network issues disallowed a good chunk of Live users from getting their fix over the past few weeks. According to the complaint, MSFT understood that the time of year would lead to increased activity, yet "failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers." Of course, we're betting the Redmond-based lawyers point out that clause about not guaranteeing any minimum level of service, but who knows, maybe we'll all end up with two shiny new Arcade titles.[Thanks, Andre and Ben]
lol.....i mean, this is ooold news..
"Reportedly, a trio of angered Texans"
It all made perfect sense after the word "Texans".
duh here in texas, its just the right thing to do
I win 7 games in a row(plus a couple more here and there) in Halo 3, I'm still rank 23 >.> yet the buddy I was playing with is now 34. I was MVP 5 times out of those 7. Wtf Microsoft?
i don't think someone named rohit kapur should be making fun of anybody.....
@ Paul:
You got a problem with my name?
So I take it you're racist, anyway, or just illiterate when it comes to anything outside your own community.
Either way, it doesn't matter. You're not worth my time, so I'm gonna stop now. And I sincerely hope you never find your way to India, or within the midst of an Indian community. If you say anything like that there, you might not be lucky enough to find someone like me who'll let it slide without much ado. :)
Moron.
i don't think someone named Paul should be trying to make fun of anybody.....
I don't think that pointing out that you have an unusual name is racist, friend. Maybe you should calm down and realize that not everyone is a bigot. I'm not speaking for Paul, but I don't think he meant it the way you took it. Find a better reason to be pissy.
10 points for Rohit.
What exactly were you thinking when you wrote that Paul?
@ Fred:
Which is exactly why I said "So I take it you're racist, anyway, or just illiterate when it comes to anything outside your own community."
Though he's not necessarily a racist, the fact that he thinks my name is so funny/obscure/stupid goes to show that he doesn't quite know much about non-American names.
Anyway, this is really not worth being dragged on for so long. Let's just drop it, and leave it be.
Peace! :)
chill Rohit...
dont get provoked... make rebuttals with style.. not with anger ;)
Rohit, why are you getting pissy? You made fun of Texans and now you're pissed because someone called you on it? If you don't want people making comments, then stop making them yourself. Have you even been to Texas?
Ah. So Paul is a racist for pointing out your name.
What's that make you for your negative stereotype that you liberally applied to Texans?
Don't get me wrong Rohit, I thought your original comment was funny, but if you're going to freak out over what Paul said then you probably shouldn't have made yourself look like such a hypocrite for calling out Texans.
Regardless of this argument, I also agree with Rohit... I rolled my eyes once I read "Texans".
wow my comment sure did get a lot of replies......
@ Rohit
i wasn't trying to be racist with what i said, there are plenty of amercian names that i think are funny/obscure/stupid also that i would make fun of too so chill out. besides, i know names like yours, i talk to them on xbox live support when i get routed to india on the phone.....
@ Evan and Rohit
read what Michael and rewb said....
@ Jagannath A
wow that sure was creative what your first post said, congratulations.....
Wow! you must be from Oklahoma ...
lol :-)
Here I am last night playing coD4 with just 76 points left till I reach Brigadier General. I could have gotten 1000 XP just by killing 3 guys with the M4 (M4 Challeneg).
Couldn't log into a single goddamn host without the game dropping - and I tried like 30 times.
I'm not sure what Microsoft plans to do about the outages as far as compensation goes but I DEMAND RECOMPENSATION.
You can give me 1000 gPoints towards movie downloads
so I can watch "CHAINED HEAT 2" and "Babylon 5 Lost Tales" - or some Aqua Teen episodes.
Heres a tip: Why don't you stop being a spoilt prat and try again in a few days. Maybe then you can get your oh so important 1000Xp
You tried 30 times?!?!? Oh my God! You should sue!!!!
I DEMAND YOU REALIZE HOW STUPID YOU SOUND.
I don't know if you've ever worked with servers, let alone ones containing info for so many members, but they're no easy thing. You sound like the guy who walks into a store and starts yelling at a salesperson because something is out of stock. Sometimes, these things are unavoidable.
Ummm...Dragod...Windows Server sucks. I work with servers everyday. They all work, just about all the time. Outages never last this long. Of course, I use FreeBSD. Keeping them running IS an easy thing. There really is no good excuse for the outages. Microsoft get better network engineers and systems engineers. It sounds like the ones they have now are idiots.
Actually, it sounds like you're the idiot, since you're pronouncing fault without full knowledge of the problem.
Chew on that one for a while, won't you?
@Wraith808
You obviously have never worked for a large service provider. If
Microsoft had an efficient and properly redundant network to support
the traffic, as well as good IPS boxes in place, a good backup system
for their servers, and proper sparing contracts with their vendors,
these outages would have lasted no more than a day.
Short of the whole building blowing up, which is another reason to
have a distributed system, there is no excuse for how long the
service was down. Traffic can be redirected to backup systems.
Servers can be rebuilt from scratch. These things can happen very
quickly. Their only excuse is incompetence.
Personally, I don't use XBox Live and couldn't care less about the
outages. My argument is simply one of reasonable outage times.
I have worked for many large service providers, and they would have
been sued into oblivion for outages this big. A single class-action
lawsuit, with many folks saying it is unfounded, is very telling.
People tolerate a very large amount of low-quality service and
product from Microsoft. Everyone seems to think it's okay to get
screwed.
Stupidity is boundless when it comes to Microsoft
>You obviously have never worked for a large service provider. If
>Microsoft had an efficient and properly redundant network to support
>the traffic, as well as good IPS boxes in place, a good backup system
>for their servers, and proper sparing contracts with their vendors,
>these outages would have lasted no more than a day.
Ok, this is based on the fact that we are ASSUMING they had a systems outage. Microsoft hasn't stated ANYTHING, at least nothing official, about their outage. The above is the closest, and hints that the issue is not an outage, rather a bandwidth issue.
Second, since you have worked with an IT company that does hosting, I'm sure you can understand the billions of $'s that go into building the mainframe that Microsoft uses, if not, stop replying, you'll only make yourself sound stupid.
And finally, yes, redundant systems are great, Especially when you have space. Our server room hosts roughly 400 different customers servers, for an approximate 700+ servers, our rack room is about 1600sq ft. This includes AC systems, AC monitoring systems, Power backup, and 2 generator boxes that take power from our diesel generators. If we were to use a redundancy system on Every single server there, the costs for customers would be rather high, (with simple servers ranging from 5000-50000 a piece. Some database servers have ranged up higher than that...) and the space required would be a lot higher, over 3500sq ft.
>Short of the whole building blowing up, which is another reason to
>have a distributed system, there is no excuse for how long the
>service was down. Traffic can be redirected to backup systems.
>Servers can be rebuilt from scratch. These things can happen very
>quickly. Their only excuse is incompetence.
I do agree that the outage has been going on for a lot longer than it should, however, we still have not been told what the actual issue is. For all we know, it is related to this issue http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/082107-gunplay-blamed-for-internet.html
If they had to re-lay one of their fiber optic cables... it could take some time.
Also, it seems to me that there was a longer outage in certain areas. Up in Vancouver BC (just north of the border from Seattle Washington) the outage only lasted for 3-5 days... That's not much of a stretch without gaming online, and if it was a bandwidth issue that needed additional systems in place to fix, about 3-5 days is the time that would be needed to setup redundancy, test it, and then put it online.
Personally, I don't use XBox Live and couldn't care less about the
outages. My argument is simply one of reasonable outage times.
>I have worked for many large service providers, and they would have
>been sued into oblivion for outages this big. A single class-action
>lawsuit, with many folks saying it is unfounded, is very telling.
>People tolerate a very large amount of low-quality service and
>product from Microsoft. Everyone seems to think it's okay to get
>screwed.
>
>Stupidity is boundless when it comes to Microsoft
With your answers, I'd almost assume that you are saying that you have worked for an ISP. ISP's don't host info on the same scale that a hosting company, and hosting companies don't host anything like what X-Box Live is running. Not to excuse Microsoft for the extended outages, but again, we still are not positive on what exactly happened, for all we know, one of their ISP hubs blew up, and needs to be fabricated, shipped, installed, and tested before they can re-launch their system... It's not unheard of for large companies, Microsoft for example, to use one of a kind systems that use specialized one of a kind hardware, if it breaks in a way that wasn't expected, it can very quickly cause lengthy outages.
I despise lawsuit happy people. Get a life. Good luck in court, 3 Texans vs Microsoft Lawyers....hmmm.
you underestimate the power of texans.. chuck norris is one himself
You're assuming all lawsuits, or at least those against Microsoft, are frivolous. That's just stupid. Some things are simply not covered under criminal law and require civil action. Contract violations fall under civil law. If someone welched on a deal with you, and you got screwed, would you just take it?
When someone takes advantage of you, you should make them understand what their doing is wrong. For most people, rich and poor alike, there is no better way than a financial punishment.
If fear of a lawsuit can keep companies and individuals a little more honest, so be it.
Not all just this one. Blatantly stupid and without merit. No permanent damage has been done to anyone here. A lawsuit has to prove some sort of damage, some loss. I doubt very seriously that any court in the land is going to look at your Halo 3 Service Record and say, "Oh yeah, I can see where you missed out on that triple kill, and you deserve recompense!!!" Come on people get real. BTW, Dallas, TX here so it's not all of us.
@Fred
Permanent damage doesn't have to be involved...We ARE paying for the service, but unless they have a BUNCH of users behind them (since it's a class action lawsuit), then this is absolutely stupid. We're paying at most $5 a month...we're going on two weeks so that would be $2.50 per person, 3 people in this lawsuit...so $7.40...a cheap lawyer would cost a couple hundred bucks...not to mention all the court fees involved...they're going to lose money even if they win...
I can pretty much guarantee somewhere in the XBLive TOS (which I did not read but said I did) there is a clause about possible live downtime. The lawsuit is without merit.
I guess what I'm saying is that while you are paying for a service you didn't receive, you are being compensated. You may not like what you're getting, but it is something. There's a saying that the way you know that you got a good deal is that neither party is happy with what they got, and I'm sure that MS doesn't WANT to give people anything.
@cortes.john - Chuck Norris resides in Texas, but he is an Okie.
I doubt this will pass, but its nice to see that someone is taking action against MS.
This really makes them look bad, even if it doesn't pass.
I don't even want 1 arcade game...I want something else...maybe some MS points?
Are you really that selfish? Any sane person looking at a lawsuit like this would laugh in those Texans' faces. It is ridiculous to think a company could anticipate and instantly rectify the massive activity that MS incurred. Just relate Xbox Live to any other pay service, i.e. Cable TV, satellite, Cell phone service, Internet etc. At some point, each one of those services has gone down at some point but there is now way you could every possibly think one of those going down caused you 5 Million in damages. I hope this instantly gets thrown out of court and the judge laughs at someone, either the Texans or their lawyers who thought this would fly.
"I lost $2.50 worth of time from my Xbox Live subscription. I just spent $10 in gas to get here. I demand Microsoft hand over ONE MILLYEEN DOLLARS."
"Any sane person looking at a lawsuit like this would laugh in those Texans' faces..... Just relate Xbox Live to any other pay service, i.e. Cable TV, satellite, Cell phone service, Internet etc. At some point, each one of those services has gone"
Well dickwad, what kind of internet/phone/cable/satellite do you have that goes out for weeks at a time? Our electric company was hit with a $60MILLION fine they had to pay back to customers because the power went out a little longer than the nation average. Normal use should not equal extended outages. Unless MS got hit with a severe storm that cut power lines to their servers they don't really have an excuse for WEEKS of interrupted service. Some people probably paid the 100s of dollars for the console specifically for that service. ANY SANE PERSON would & should sue their provider if they regularly had outages for that duration.
Any other pay for service doesn't have as much money as microsoft. And that being said, I expect perfection. You you buy a 3000$ MacBook Pro. You expect perfection. When you buy a 600$ watch, expect perfection. When my service goes down and it's run by a company with a vast amount of money on top of the fact that it's the only console you have to pay for. I expect perfection.
nikola: "Our electric company was hit with a $60MILLION fine they had to pay back to customers because the power went out a little longer than the nation average"
The difference there is that nobody ever died of heat stroke or pneumonia because they're internet gaming went down. Just put on your big girl panties and deal with it.
"their internet gaming"
grrrr....the only thing worse than when other people do that is when I do that.
Its amaizing how people understand the demand for "reparations" after they themselves experience loss and disenfranchisement.
890,000+ Xbox live gamers Vs. Microsoft.
maybe steve jobs inspired the whole thing as a plot to make microsofts stock go down to 7 dollars. =)
The problem with that math is that the majority of XBL gamers, when faced with an outage, will blink at the screen a couple times, say "fuck" and then GO DO SOMETHING ELSE.
@josef
Agreed. Get a life; I mean I like Live and all, but it's not worth clogging up our overloaded court systems with a frivolous lawsuit.
I'm going to guess Microsoft have better lawyers than these folks.
I found it odd that Microsoft couldn't actually keep track of how many Gold subscriptions had been sold and therefore couldn't predict demand. Surely that would be a fairly good indication? If not, then just estimate it from how many new Xboxes were sold! And if they didn't expect all those people to logon on Christmas day, they don't deserve your subscription payments!
It's not like that information is sent to them as they are sold... It all comes in at one time, I believe. The only Live subscriptions they would know about would be the ones bought on the Xbox itself, which I doubt people would pay for (atleast I wouldn't) because you get an extra month from the 12+1 month card, and online you get charge a processing fee. And when they're bought online, it's not like they have much time to react and hook up more servers.
2008 sure isn't a great year for microsoft so far...
Live issues, lawsuits, Warner jumping to blu-ray, cancellation of HD DVD press conference, suing apple for monopoly..
wow, unlike 2007, 2008 seems to be shining good for sony so far though
5 days in, at least give Sony the chance to F**K things up
-Microsoft gets sued for crap all the time, all the big companies do. People think they should have the right to take money from valid businesses just because they are less successful.
-The only real tie that MS has to the HD-DVD is that it is offered as an optional add-on to the 360. Looks like they covered their asses, huh? Now they don't look so stupid as if they included it straight away.
So really...Not doing that bad, are they?
@andrew:
easy for you to say.... don't take into account that the 360 came out a year earlier... or that TO THIS DAY the cheapest ps3 (that isn't backwards compatible with the previous generation... unlike the 360) is still the price that the Premium 360 was 2 years ago....
yeah, sony included the drive, yes sony included slightly larger hard drives.. yes, sony skimped on things like... a decent length for the miniUSB charger cable, highdef cable, and rumble...
so stop being a fanboi... we have all three and I always try to be objective, but sheesh... at least look at the deatils.
or.... details.. whichever... =P
@Prokanda:
You're either stupid or...stupid.
Did you even read what I wrote? I didn't come out swinging for the PS3, did I? I pointed out that Microsoft (and Apple and probably also Sony) get sued for stupid things by greedy people all the time. After that I said that Microsoft isn't so tightly caught up in HD-DVD that its loss would hurt them overmuch...
How does that make me a fanboi? You obviously didn't read my post at all.
@prokanda
How do you respond to andrew's post like that? It doesn't even make sense. All he said was big companies get sued all the time and Microsoft was smart not to bundle HD DVD if it isn't going to win.
I don't get this, ok so they went down and yes you pay money to them to be up so you can play your games.
You pay money for their OS and it’s not the most stable and the information lost there when the OS or other apps decide to crash is more important so why don't I see everyone taking them to court for this.
It's a game and they offered up a free Arcade title, ok you want more but I am sure you won’t get any in a court of law.
They should have just extended everyone's subscriptions by the amount of time it was down instead of giving them something unlike what they purchased (xbox live time).
But if the contract says they don't guarantee service, then MS could just say everyone is SOL, but that would probably be bad for business.
Didn't engadget's story a few days ago say the actual amount lost from outages was something like $1.64 or something? Doesn't that make the lawsuit a bit... superfluous?
I mean, if Microsoft had refused to offer anything in compensation, I could understand, but this seems like a lot of huff over nothing...
Exactly, and I wish that everyone else saw that!
No doubt. If you can afford lawyers to take on MS, they're obviously not that hard up for money, so what is the issue for these 3 texans? That they went 13 days without playing CoD online? Oh, that does sound rough. Wow.
It will be the first lawsuit in US history to be paid in pocket change.
Its not if you paid a few hundred dollars expecting that service the lawsuit is very much valid.
"I could understand, but this seems like a lot of huff over nothing"
If you paid a few hundred new phone expecting cheap internet or IMs and it was down for WEEKS at a time you would be owed more than you paid to receive that service - and they company would be obligated to fix the problem at their own expense. idiot.
"idiot".
Thanks for that mr. friggles.
And yes, I have purchased a new phone in the past, and have had service issues. And guess what happened: I was refunded the portion of my bill that was owed from service outages.
Your comparison is even more ridiculous when you consider the basis for your argument - at least with a phone, you can argue that you're loosing something of value - lost sales, missed deals, whatever. But saying that you're owed money because you couldn't play a game with your friends online? After the company has acknowledged the problem, and offered a refund of sorts for greater than the cost of the service?
I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm the one who's being an idiot here.
mr friggles:
I really hate to rain on the parade of idiots in your brain, but you don't pay a few hundred for XBL. Yes, you paid a few hundred for the console, but here's one for you: Microsoft didn't kick down your door and take it, did they? Amazingly enough, despite not having the pleasure of online gaming for a couple of weeks, you still have literally everything you had before the outages.
So, if you want to recalculate based on the fact that the XBL Gold customers lost an amount less than 2 dollars, not "hundreds", you can go right ahead and do that.
@mr friggles:
Ummm... they *are* fixing it at their own expense. And compensating the players. Maybe not the way they want to be, but they are. They could have re-couped more by going through CS more likely, or not doing it Class Action so that perhaps MS would have settled with them rather than letting it blow up into this.
/me shrugs
Still much ado over nothing...
The lawsuit is probably more on the grounds of emotional and psychological stress.
See Flashpoint's comment. (2nd comment on this page.)
The only one who will get rich from this is the law firm. Actual damages for those with a 1-year subscription is less than $2 whereas if you're month to month its around $3.50. Microsoft is going to offer "compensation" greater than that so I don't see how this really benefits anyone.
I watn MS Points. A free Arcade title isn't all its hyped up to be, unless of course it is for ANY Arcade title and can score Rez HD for free! :D
What MS should have done is just give all effected users a free month of XBOX Live! (For those who are paying for the gold) When my cable & internet went out for 3 weeks, after it was fixed they gave me a free month of Cable & Internet. I would have been upset too if they had givin me a free PPV movie that I did not want to watch.
Your cable costs I would guess upwards of 1000% of XBL.
Cost does not matter, the service was out for 3 weeks. So a free replacement should be offered to those who pay for XBL.
However those who are using the free level of XBL have no room to complain, as they are not paying for it.
I love how the outage keeps getting longer everytime someone mentions it. First it's "I was down for a couple of days" Then it's "I LOST A WEEK OF MY LIFE" Now it's "3 weeks"? Nevermind the fact that it's not like you were hooked up that whole time. Jeez, don't you people have jobs?!? (kidding) I realize everybody is bummed that they couldn't play on X-mas. I for one saw this coming WAY, WAY off, but just take the game and move on with your lives. Everybody is so insenced over this. Channel some of that energy into being green or whatever it is you're normally all up in arms about.
it better be more than a crappy 400 point title too. it better be our CHOICE of titles.
it'd be pretty freakin simple for msft to just extend all of us with another 2 weeks of live. bandwidth doesn't cost that much, and it'd be cheaper than losing loyal customers over some stupid crap like this. i mean c'mon... an arcade game? bought my xbox and xbl on release day, and can you guess how many arcade games i've downloaded? zero! bought my xbox for REAL games DUH!
MICROSOFT:
WE DON'T WANT YOUR CRAPPY A$$ ARCADE GAME! WE WANT OUR 2 WEEKS BACK!
proof!
that "Theres only two things in Texas. Steers and Queers."
And these three Texans don't appear to have horns.
There's no queers in Texas. Live ones, anyway...
Wait...I thought that was Iran.
You know, I am for corporate accountability as much as the next guy, but in terms of the Xbox MS has been pretty good about being accountable without being sued. They extended the waranty 3 years without lawsuit, they are offering a free (hopefully non-shitty) title in the wake of the outage, etc. I wish they would extend all gold membership an additional month as compensation, but at least they did something.
What I smell here is a quick attempt at getting some extra cash on the part of lawyers, and a bunch of saps who don't realize that likely, even if the class action lawsuit succeeds, they won't get much better than an arcade title (I mean hell, the record industry was proven guilty of widespread price fixing for years and we consumers got a whopping $13.86 a piece. Two weeks of intermitent outages that affect a fraction of the people the price fixing did isn't likely to rank quite as high). Use class action lawsuits for what they are meant for, when companies step way out of line and don't care. Don't throw them at companies that realize they screwed up and actually try to give *some* compensation to their customers.
Incidentally, were there lawsuits during the launch of WoW, where the service was unusable for months and did the lawsuit go anywhere? Serious question, I'd like to know, since for those customers the outage was a complete DoS of the product they purchased. I know blizzard similarly tried to rectify matters.
I was out an entire week. That is $50/year, or $0.96 a week. Would you prefer 96 cents or an Arcade title? If this was Sony, you wouldn't get anything, so stop whining.
Screw the live service MS, just give me a stream of free games :P
"...the time of year would lead to increased activity", so MS should have known that but the plaintiffs shouldn't?
Microsoft has to do something, I just bought my xbox 20 days ago, and I barely used my free month of gold live, or the console because the dashboard stays thinking and cant access my games!
The should give 2 weeks of free gold live...
I like the idea of them giving two free weeks of XBox Live just for people like you that are already on there free. I know it seems a little odd, but it makes sense when you think about it.
They give out free subscriptions in order to try to hook more customers. If the service is down, they haven't been doing a good job at bringing in those customers, so they should extend the subscriptions by two weeks in order to do so.
lol wow.. shows what the world is coming too... or maybe just texans?
I was on live intermittently during this time period and played COD4. Sometimes i would get disconnected sometimes i couldn't get in a game at all. I would just play a different game or turned off the 360 and watched a movie with my girlfriend and my daughter. We laughed, talked, and had a good time together. So in all actuality MS did me a favor.
An arcade game or a month service extension is more than fair compensation in my opinion.
Americans suing each other? That just doesn't make sense...
The Live outage also screwed up my rankings in Team Fortress 2! Went from 113th-ish for months to 500+ in one night even after a record evening of kills! Total BS. Anyone else experience anything like this in TF2? Anyway, that evening got another RROD and sent the 360 back to MS this week for repair--my fourth one. Love the gaming and community but the hardware really sucks. Best thing they can do is make the service free like PSN.
Omgz ur rankingz iz dwn?
In a month you will grow tired of whatever game you were just talking about, and will quit playing it. Your ranking will go down anyhow, but you won't care. I don't think its all that big of a deal.
Hey guys,
I am tracking each day(every 10 minutes) the status of xbox live, and creating
statisical images, this shows the biig picture on how "live" xbox-live actually is :)
http://www.acddv.com/
Huh...funny thing is my Playstation Network has been fine all through Christmas vacation! And I don't even PAY for that! ^_^ Seems like a little "I told you so" is in order here! :-P
Noted. Now all you need are some decent games.
And what games does XBOX 360 have that are good...let me list them...
-Gears of War
-Halo 3
-Um...Halo 2 plays on the 360, doesn't it?
-Well, if Halo 2 counts, so does Halo 1!
Look at the PS3s 2008 lineup! MGS4, GT5:Prologue, GTA4, Killzone, Home, Little Big Planet, and Unreal Tournament 3 will never die with mods!
XBOX360=Fail
@Jon Graft
Only 1 of those games you mentioned is out. Also, GTA 4 will come out on 360, and MGS4 is likely to come out on 360, too.
Stop being such a fanboy.
The reason only one of those games are actually out is because that is the 2008 LINEUP as in COMING OUT THIS 2008! The only reason UT3 is listed is because mods come out and refresh the entire online gaming.
Yeah, GTA4 is coming out and MGS4 is coming out a year later MAYBE, but what else does the 360 have? I am not being a fanboy, I simply buy with my brain...not because it is a "fad" to own. Similar "fads"...iPod. A majority of people buy iPods only because it is the "cool" thing to own.
"funny thing is my Playstation Network has been fine all through Christmas vacation"
ummmm because many more people got 360's instead of PS3's...
and you were asking about which 360 games are any good...
Halo 3
Blue Dragon (just got it, really good if you like RPG's)
CoD4
Crackdown
Forza
Gears of War
GRAW
Guitar Hero 3
Mass Effect
The Orange Box
PGR3 and 4
Rock Band
Viva Pinata
Hey John, how's that backwards compatibility thing working out for you PS3ers? OH, I'm sorry it's NOT! (burn!) now you know why I didn't spring for a PS3. Weak on games right now (which incedentally is when I like to play my games) No Live or comparable service. No concern for people that put them where they are/were. I'm don't hate the PS3, but it's too expensive, and it just doesn't look like that much fun right now. GT5 Does look pretty good, and I am a rabid fan of those games, but I'll be damned if Forza 2 doesn't look pretty freakin sweet, too. If Sony would get their heads out of their butts I'd be glad to return to the fold, but in the meantime, I'm gonna go stick some plasmas to some people's heads.
People think Xbox Live outages are bad for a couple of weeks? Try World of Warcraft outages when the servers are down for longer than they should be in just a day. I think it's ridiculous that people cry over things such as game outages. You pay $7.99/month, $19.99/3 months, $49.99/year for the service...that's pretty much a meal at Subway in one sitting unless you eat more, not even a full tank of gas for a small car, and almost a new game, respectively. If XBox Live was like electricity, then I would understand why people would want to sue after a couple of weeks of not having it, but it's not. Those 2 weeks could have been spent doing something else productive that could have earned the person more money to pay for more months of service instead of sitting around and QQ'ing about the problem when they know it's going to get fixed eventually.
I have XBox Live Gold and I play on it whenever I get the chance, but when the outages started happening, I did something else with my time instead.
Exactly! And when WoW went/goes down you CAN'T play, at all. When Live goes down you can still play single player.
Ah spoiled children/childish grown-up's at their finest.. "I pay for this, this shouldn't be going down"
It's YOUR choice to pay it, you don't HAVE to have the Gold account and the Wii/PS3 don't charge at all. This is M$, what did you expect to happen? Everything would be all good... ya cause Windows is such stable platform.....
This whole hubbub MIGHT be valid if MS said, "Yep Live is down, Get Bent." But they didn't. They worked diligently, and in as timely a manner as possible to resolve the issue, and have publicly stated that they are willing to give us all something for essentially nothing. You suffered through an outage and they have decided to give you a game for your trouble, certainly the reward is more tangible than what you lost. MS is very careful in the way they craft their EULAs and ToS. They don't have to do anything about this. And if you're going to tell me that you can slog through all that legalese and figure out a way to sue MS and win, then you are just as deluded as the guys suing now.