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Xbox Live suffers holiday hangover

Microsoft's online gaming service ends 2007 with more than a week of on-again, off-again outages.

'Twas the night before Christmas when Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb updated his blog with the first of numerous bulletins about holiday hang-ups for Microsoft's online gaming service. Xbox 360 owners found the service suffering frequent and varied problems, from issues with signing in to problems in recovering accounts.

On December 29, Hryb updated his blog and said that "record numbers of new members signing up for Xbox Live and record numbers of players online" had contributed to the issues.

"While the service was never completely offline, problems like this are not acceptable," Hryb wrote. "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."

A number of users reported continuing issues with the service today, from lengthy delays in performing basic Xbox Live functions to persisting matchmaking troubles. The last word about the outages from Hryb came in a Twitter post on his blog yesterday with an acknowledgement that things were still not working properly, but "appeared to be getting better."

A follow-up Twitter post this morning didn't directly address the Xbox Live problems, but did imply "As you can imagine, today is a flurry of meetings/activity etc." A Microsoft representative did not return GameSpot's request for comment on the issue or what, if any, actions will be taken to compensate Xbox Live Gold subscribers for the pay service's downtime.

518 Comments

  • BikerPunk

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 1:31 pm GMT

    not just CoD4, but almost all games have been super sketchy at best. i havent been able to properly play a game all week. i weep at night, as i am forced to watch movies instead with my WIFE!! GOD HELP ME!

  • barnold81

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 4:41 am GMT

    My main complaint is I downloaded an HD movie to watch, have only 14 days to watch it, but took 4 or 5 days to download it because it would keep dropping and I would get an error. That's the last time I'll ever try doing that. I still haven't gotten a chance to watch it yet.

  • mjc0961

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 4:11 am GMT

    "lakeerie ever heard of the playstation network? Solid. Free. noob."

    Only because there aren't even close to the number of people on the Playstation Network as there were trying to get on Xbox Live when these problems occurred. Put that many people on Playstation Network at once and I bet it crashes completely.

  • rose_please

    Posted Jan 6, 2008 6:16 pm GMT

    and the ps3 itself is getting hammered just as much as the xbox, i cant even play cod4.

  • lakeerie_effect

    Posted Jan 6, 2008 12:25 pm GMT

    to the kid who said xboxlive should be free ur a clown then how would they afford the servers techs and other things needed to run it properly

  • patsy-cline

    Posted Jan 6, 2008 5:34 am GMT

    I still can't get onto xbox live AAHHH!!!! got it for christmas!

  • Prime05

    Posted Jan 5, 2008 10:22 pm GMT

    Xbox live should be free...

  • Batalskar

    Posted Jan 5, 2008 6:30 pm GMT

    Only (But STILL) having problems with matchmaking with Halo3 and CoD4 which is a big pain in the butt!

  • alberto2045

    Posted Jan 5, 2008 1:02 pm GMT

    interesting

  • RangerG

    Posted Jan 4, 2008 7:50 pm GMT

    It wont sign me into msn on xbox anymore, freezing, lag, no game connections.

  • thomas10soa

    Posted Jan 4, 2008 6:41 pm GMT

    wenever i went to my dashboard it signed me out of xbox live

    oh and also did anybody have problems with gh3 i had crazy lag and repeated freezings

  • pimmm

    Posted Jan 4, 2008 1:40 pm GMT

    this was a bad moment to use my 2 day trial

  • omino

    Posted Jan 4, 2008 9:36 am GMT

    Kotaku has an article saying that it was actually a haxor attack. Denial of service to be exact.

  • peeweeshift

    Posted Jan 4, 2008 6:33 am GMT

    dam i dont have gold only silver. i was using one of those 2 day passses to play cod4 and i was using marketplace and i got erros does that count

  • Jebril

    Posted Jan 4, 2008 6:30 am GMT

    You guys shouldn't be playing Video Games on the weekend, especially not online games too.

    Go spend some time with your family...they miss you T_T

    ....Or they should.....

  • Redsyrup

    Posted Jan 4, 2008 12:51 am GMT

    You really shouldn't expect to get 100% of what you pay for... according to Microsoft.

  • education

    Posted Jan 4, 2008 12:44 am GMT

    i only had problems getting online with call of duty 4 which sucks cas im sick of playing halo 3 for now

  • 345669

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 11:23 pm GMT

    It's Been Ok for me, the problems seems to be in the market place as it takes along time to load the video, demos etc links and it displays an error message.

  • bdbogart

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 10:54 pm GMT

    Dear Xbox LIVE Members: During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records. This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service. As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break. While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance. I would like to take this moment to thank you each and every one of you for your patience and understanding as our team has worked around the clock to return the service to a stable state. At the same time we would like to offer a token of our appreciation to all of you in celebration of record success for the service. And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge. In the coming weeks we will be sharing the specific details of this offer with you. Thank you again for helping make Xbox LIVE everything that it is today!

  • ishcabible6000

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 10:32 pm GMT

    Good so it wasn't my router causing those problems after all.

  • Axe_336

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 8:11 pm GMT

    Cokbok, nothing works perfectly 100% of the time. Sure its unfortunate that these problems came up, but they're fixing them. Problems are going to happen, and if you don't allow for that with any given service then I'd be surprised if you buy anything at all since by your logic: If you buy something or are paying for something then it must work at optimal levels at all times or you're being ripped off.

    Basically, just because my cable goes out doesn't mean my cable company is ripping me off.

  • cokbok

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 7:45 pm GMT

    Hey ape. If you are paying money for a service you better be getting the full service or you'd be getting ripped off. Have fun getting reemed by Micro$oft

  • Ape_Escape_1Fan

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 7:08 pm GMT

    Record numbers my arse, working day and night to solve it my arse, typical Microsoft bug ridden, consumer ripping off, BS service.

    The reason why they havn't fixed it is because most of them are still on holidays. They don't care about you lemmings, they only want your money. HAHAHA Crap-box blows

    -------------------------------------------------------

    yeah they just made their workers stay for the holidays to work on YOUR problems. What inconsiderate beings.

  • welshykyle

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 6:14 pm GMT

    yeah, i've noticed a few problems with COD4, plus i haven't been able to redeem the code for the 2100 MS points i bought today...hopefully this won't take too long to sort out

  • Ek-Andy

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 6:01 pm GMT

    Well i have to say i have not been at all impressed by the Xbox 360s performance. There seems to be alot of corners cut in its design and services, it almost makes me wish i bought a PS3 anything against the PS3. I mean the 360 is fairly cheap compared to the consoles on the gaming market right now, in fact its technically the best value for money, but that seems to be the way with American technology, it may be cheap but its inefficent as hell. Just compare American cars to Japanese cars in terms of efficency. This is just one problem in a huge list for the Xbox 360.

  • cokbok

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 5:57 pm GMT

    Record numbers my arse, working day and night to solve it my arse, typical Microsoft bug ridden, consumer ripping off, BS service.

    The reason why they havn't fixed it is because most of them are still on holidays. They don't care about you lemmings, they only want your money. HAHAHA Crap-box blows

  • Downleyboy

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 5:16 pm GMT

    They're not doing their best at customer service. Took them a few days to even report a problem. Since then updates have been sparse. I haven't got on over a week now as I play at night gmt.

    Why isn't there a message on the 360 homepage? You have to do a bit of searching to see that there's a problem.

  • BradW92

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 4:52 pm GMT

    My bad guys, i joined xbox live on the 26th hehe
    I've noticed problems with matchmaking and stuff but to be hoenst its been bareable, andits a great service anyway

  • BVCX

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 4:41 pm GMT

    Agermemnon "nothing in life is for free people you will pay for what a product costs somewhere down the line otherwise the company's involved in it to MAKING MONEY wouldn't be doing it" PSN and wii connect24 are for free.

  • EA2Y731

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 4:33 pm GMT

    hmmmm.....

  • Agermemnon

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 4:14 pm GMT

    @Soupflakez come off it don't go comparing PSN to XLIVE it dont have 10% the content XLIVE has and yes i have a PS3 so sushhhhh , Microsoft and a few of the game publishers/developers ( infinity ward cod4 ) should have put on a few more servers as it is quite obvious that it was never going to cope with the increased volume it has had , i have not experienced any problems with XLIVE before now so cant complain to much as it is a great service even if it does cost . ( nothing in life is for free people you will pay for what a product costs somewhere down the line otherwise the company's involved in it to MAKING MONEY wouldn't be doing it ) with a bit of luck it wont take to long to sort out .

  • joeaboyland

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:53 pm GMT

    i dont mind paying for a great service, ive never had a problems with it, compare it to somethig that is free, like the Wii's online service, that isnt so great and that is why it is free, £40 a year is great value for money on xbox live i say

  • Soupflakez

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:42 pm GMT

    Dryker: "People are so funny......they want everything," yeah WE do. I expect top of the line service when I pay for it. It didn't make you angry that you had to go through a lot of trouble to get online with your original xbox? You're one out of a million. Your logic just doesn't make much sense. Why would it concern you if your service never had difficulties? It would be inhuman? It would be efficient if it never had any trouble. I dunno, it just astounds me that PSN never has any trouble and it's free. While XBL seems to have trouble every now and then when it costs $50 per year. I dunno, maybe I'm crazy, but I expect atleast the same quality of service from XBL as I get with PSN.

  • DerekLStinson

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:42 pm GMT

    "def_mode another reason why XBL should be free?"

    Are you kidding? Then we would never be able to get on.

  • jtthegame316

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:34 pm GMT

    I have never had any problems with live. There is so much on live as well. i have found it to be a good service.

  • jknight5422

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:32 pm GMT

    I was wondering what was going on with all the laggy connections & disconnections. I thought it was just me. How disappointing.

  • mixhawkeye

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:19 pm GMT

    Waiitt Waiitttt it looks like its down again!

  • def_mode

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:14 pm GMT

    another reason why XBL should be free?

  • Triton

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:06 pm GMT

    I too felt the pain....and went and played something else not online.(games still have this feature) Its really not that bad folks.

    Life (for those of us who have one) still goes on.

    Question are you a so called "fanboy" if you own all systems and like one over the other?

  • JayJog

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:01 pm GMT

    its getting on my nerves but if their doing their best to fix it who cares

  • Carashnak

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 3:00 pm GMT

    It didn't bother me; I was enjoying Xmas with my family...

  • CyrixFreak

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 2:58 pm GMT

    the worst part about it is the timing. All the people that just got it should be pissed and for many people like me that was the time of the year i was gonna play the most cause i was off work.

  • maaly81

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 2:47 pm GMT

    I have had problems on and off with connecting to XBL service, downloading content, and with connecting with the individual game servers also. At one point I was not able to get on XBL for a whole week in December. I thought something was wrong with my internet, but I see now that it was XBL tripping. What kinda compensation will be given for the down time? a candy bar for my trouble? For the money and volume of content that I have paid for extra, Live team can do a better job. The American worker strikes again.

  • guertt

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 2:45 pm GMT

    I tought It was Call of duty4 who had problems or my connection. I can't wait to have this game running good again. It is soooo good " I love this game as much as my wife hate it...

  • mapgraywolf

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 2:41 pm GMT

    I used xbox live for about 3 years now. this was the first time i had a this sort of problem getting onto it so all i can say is thank you for running Xbox live so well for the bast 5 years as that how long it been running from. Everything will have problem. Keep up the good work Live team.

  • christopherneal

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 2:36 pm GMT

    Spoiled rotten the lot of you! It ain't that serious people. They'll get it together.

  • Strider_91

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 2:31 pm GMT

    Dryker and Dozer..
    Totally right. The fact we get this sort of service at all is amazing enough for me EVERYTHING comes with problems.

  • dsrarrow

    Posted Jan 3, 2008 2:30 pm GMT

    It's not that I want a perfect world. However I do pay for it, so why can't they have it working?

    BD

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