Xbox Live offline next Monday

Online Rock Band 2 acts will have a day-long intermission, and Burnout Paradise racers will have a bit of a pitstop next week, given that Microsoft has notified Xbox Live users that the service is in for some downtime.

Starting at 12:01 a.m. PST on Monday, September 29, Xbox Live will be unavailable for up to 24 hours, according to Microsoft, while the publisher makes upgrades to the service. Eager Xbox 360 owners are advised not to get their hopes up speculating about possible upgrades; Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb posted on his blog that the changes are merely to perform needed maintenance on the service in preparation for the "New Xbox Experience" dashboard update, which was recently demonstrated by Hryb.

The full NXE update is expected later this fall, and will introduce a completely revamped dashboard interface and the new avatar system. It will also add the ability to let Netflix subscribers download the popular mail-order DVD-rental service's streaming video offerings to their 360s.