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Xbox Live - The Christmas Zombie

Journal written by SEWilco (27983) and posted by Zonk on Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:15 PM
from the delicious-tinsel-covered-brains dept.
XBox (Games)
SEWilco writes "Xbox Live is not working, as mentioned 36 hours ago in an Xbox team blog. Even if you can get logged in, multiplayer matchmaking doesn't find enough players for games. For a while Zune Marketplace was also affected. At present Zune status claims 'Up and running' while Xbox Live status continues to say 'Users may experience intermittent issues logging onto Xbox Live. Our engineers are continuing to investigate and are working to resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience.' This has been been going on for days." My assumption is that this is the result of lots of new XBLA users logging in with Christmas 360s.
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Journal: Xbox Live: The Christmas Zombie by SEWilco (27983)
[+] Microsoft Giving Xbox Live Users a Free Game 265 comments
Earlier this week we covered the Xbox Live outages over the holidays. Several users have pointed out that Microsoft has acknowledged its lack of performance, and is now offering a free game to compensate its users. Unfortunately for Microsoft, disgruntled patrons have already filed a class action lawsuit over the recent difficulties. Quoting the PC World article: "Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten said that the problems with Xbox Live downtime were caused by an influx of new users who had gotten an Xbox 360 over the holidays. It's been a record-setting season for Xbox Live. '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,' said Whitten."
[+] Microsoft Apologizes for XBL Downtime With Undertow 85 comments
The extraordinary problems that Microsoft's Xbox Live experienced over the holidays were followed up with swift promises of a free game to compensate for the frustration many users suffered. The company has followed through, and has announced that Undertow will be the free game sacrificed to mollify gamers. The game will be free to download all this week, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) and running through this Sunday. "Two weeks ago, Xbox Live GM Marc Whitten posted a letter to Live subscribers apologizing for poor performance during the holidays and promising a freebie was on the way. There are currently no plans to offer a substitute game for those who already own Undertow." Just the same, Major Nelson sent along word to 360 Fanboy that they'd 'take care of you' if you found yourself in that situation.
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  • Sony's service, however, is unaffected (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 31 2007, @12:17PM (#21867196)
    Quoted from a spokesperson, Heis Afake:

    "We were worried, but while the three new users of our online service did add some strain, we managed to keep it up and running."

    • Re:Sony's service, however, is unaffected (Score:5, Funny)

      by elrous0 (869638) * on Monday December 31 2007, @02:33PM (#21868910)
      If an online service crashes in the woods, and no one is playing it to notice, does it really crash?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by G Fab (1142219)
          Agreed. The PS3 could be marketed as a value, but it's marketed in too abstract a fashion. They try to tell you about all the things it can do, but fall on their face trying too look super cool.

          That said, my 360 is on more often because it's got better games. I still like the PS3 more, band I have spent less on PS3 when you factor everything in.

          The PS3 is very cool and full of neat little surprised you can play with. Themes, Ubuntu, remote play, streaming, it's all done very smoothly and I bet you're hav

  • Predates Christmas (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HTH NE1 (675604) on Monday December 31 2007, @12:20PM (#21867228)

    My assumption is that this is the result of lots of new XBLA users logging in with Christmas 360s.
    Not an assumption of mine. On the Firehose before Christmas weekend there were submissions reporting of problems. Though that could have been from people celebrating Christmas early, it seemed far too early still for that.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gorbachev (512743)
      XBL seems to be straining. There have been more issues with the service in 2007 than all previous years combined (maybe the beta testing period excluded).

      What's troubling is that the mean time between failure seems to be decreasing sharply, and Microsoft seems to be unable to prevent them from happening at all. And fixing is taking longer and longer.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Xzzy (111297)
        Even most of 2007 was pretty rock solid. Things only started going wonky around the time of the fall update. I've been an XBL subscriber since the start and this is the only significant outage they've had that I can remember (note: my brain likes to purge old data points). Yeah, it sucks. But it's not the end of the world. There's plenty of other ways for me to waste my free time so its not like it's my sole source of entertainment.

        I do find it amusing how loudly a lot of people are complaining. The same pe

    • Re:Predates Christmas (Score:5, Informative)

      by MBCook (132727) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Monday December 31 2007, @12:24PM (#21867288) Homepage

      Ditto. I got a 360 in mid December or so. XBox Live has been flakey since the day I got it. Sometimes you couldn't log in, sometimes you couldn't get to the marketplace. Just problems and more problems. I was worried that I would be missing something not paying for Live Gold, now I'm glad I didn't. The Christmas set only made things worse.

      My last experience with XBL was in '04-'05 after Halo 2 came out. That was the last time I used the service and it worked fantastically then. This kind of thing didn't happen then.

      I can't say all this surprises me too much. I've ran into more than a few questionable design choices on the 360.

      I hope they get things working better. All they did was reassure me in my decision not to pay them for their "service".

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by MoonFog (586818)
        I got Orange Box and Call of Duty 4 for xmas, and COD has really been struggling at times. Playing Team Fortress 2 otoh, has worked very well all the time.
        • hmm... I wonder is TF2 is hosted by Valve? They might have better servers then MS does. They have been doing the massive online games thing longer.
          • I'm not sure how you'd classify anything Valve has done as a 'massive online game', additionally they've historically (just like all other PC FPS games) relied on their user base to host servers.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Cheapy (809643)
        It must be you then! GET HIM!

        I started to see problems after the 22nd. Before then, everything worked really well. I thought for a while that it was my wireless connection, but I guess not.

        This is the only time I've seen XBL have issues, so I wouldn't judge it just by now. It's usually great. They just did an update a few weeks ago, so that might've done this.

      • Re:Predates Christmas (Score:5, Informative)

        by cplusplus (782679) on Monday December 31 2007, @01:29PM (#21868140) Journal
        Funny, as a Gold user and 360 owner for a couple years now, I've never really seen any problems until recently (and slight ones at that). I doubt it will last much longer. I've been nothing but impressed with Xbox Live so far, and would be hard pressed to give up my membership.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by xero314 (722674)

      On the Firehose before Christmas weekend...

      Can someone explain how this is news that hits the main page when other articles in the firehose that are bright ass red and ready to go get completely passed over. I mean the articles about Activision and their proprietary controllers was far more news worthy than XBox Live not being able to handle increased capacity. Seriously is Activision paying the editors here to keep their bad press of the main page or is the anti-Microsoft sentiment just that high.

  • Xbox Live is a major selling point for me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by UbuntuDupe (970646) * on Monday December 31 2007, @12:23PM (#21867272) Journal
    I'm sort of at a crossroads between getting at 360 or a PS3. The main thing driving me to get the 360 is Xbox Live, and it's kind of surprising that they can't handle a surge of new purchases. (Are they not expecting people to buy?) Without Xbox Live, the PS3 looks superior, with a free Blu-Ray drive and Wi-fi attached.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Blakey Rat (99501)
      It's not people buying new Xboxes. After all, when Halo 2 and Halo 3 came out, Xbox Live had no trouble handling the additional load from people who don't normally play on Live. I think it's related to their last software update, or perhaps some shenanigans from some game title out there now.

      That said, this isn't a total outage. I logged on to Live just yesterday, sent some Viva Pinata items to a friend (yes, make fun of me, I played Viva Pinata!) and everything worked fine. If I hadn't seen this article, I

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by antek9 (305362)
      I'm still curious as to why Xbox Live would normally have you sold, especially considering that PSN gets better with every update (as opposed to, well, XBL, as it seems). You can of course sit and wait how this plays out, maybe the introduction of Home (only, when?) tips you over, or Little Big Planet or whatever.

      And there is one thing you forgot: You can install Ubuntu on a PS3, legally. Come on, it's time for another chance, don't you think? ;)

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by kevlarcowboy (996973)
        While we are both speculating, I think it is related to the load on the Windows Live, .NET, ect. servers. Windows Live messenger was acting flaky for a friend the same time I was having XBOX Live login problems. Zune Marketplace is also an extension of these services.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by oahazmatt (868057)
          Actually, I've noticed it is not XBL that I've been having problems connecting to, but the Messenger, as you've noted was having trouble. I can get signed in, play online games, etc, but Messenger will not load.
      • Yep, I'd wager you were right about that. Major game release days (like Gears of War and Halo 3) didn't see this type of issue. It is likely that most of the people who flooded online for either of those matchmaking early on already had Live accounts.
  • I sent my friend in Indy a 360, so we could meet up online for some friendly frags, and I haven't been able to get on live at all! This is really starting to get old for a paid service...

  • Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Slashdot Suxxors (1207082) on Monday December 31 2007, @12:31PM (#21867398)
    Who cares what the problem is? Just fix the damn service already. I pay Microsoft for XBL. It had better damn work. Me not being able to host a private match with some of my buddies for days on end is fucking ridiculous.

  • Editor strike still going on? (Score:4, Funny)

    by frovingslosh (582462) on Monday December 31 2007, @12:42PM (#21867536)
    ...... Even if you can get logged in, multiplayer matchmaking doesn't find enough players for games. ........ My assumption is that this is the result of lots of new XBLA users logging in with Christmas 360s.

    So your theory is that because of a lot of new players, Microsoft can't find enough players for games? Would you care to rethink that theory?

    • ...... Even if you can get logged in, multiplayer matchmaking doesn't find enough players for games. ........ My assumption is that this is the result of lots of new XBLA users logging in with Christmas 360s.

      So your theory is that because of a lot of new players, Microsoft can't find enough players for games? Would you care to rethink that theory?

      Or it could be that countless new XBLA users are repeatedly trying to long onto Xbox Live, creating something like a distributed denial of service effect, which not only makes long-ins next to impossible, but also makes it difficult to stay logged in and finally negatively affects other services, like servers and match-maker too. Care to rethink your reply?

    • Fry: No one drove in New York. There was too much traffic.
  • This is one of the reasons I haven't embraced gaming platforms, and prefer to do my gaming on a computer. At least with a computer, there are LAN gaming options (although some game platforms may have LAN gaming capabilities, they don't seem to be as flexible or easy to set up, or even as well thought-out).

    This is coupled with the fact that there are many more computer games that have an offline campaign/career/single-player mode, and the newer games for PS3/XBox/etc that even bother to have a single-player

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Xzzy (111297)
      At least with a computer, there are LAN gaming options (although some game platforms may have LAN gaming capabilities, they don't seem to be as flexible or easy to set up, or even as well thought-out).

      Every xbox game I have ever played that supported any kind of multiplayer also supported LAN based play. In fact early on, before XBL was running, it was all the games supported. Was one of the most painless things you could experience as well. Wire up all the xboxes to a hub, and every xbox that turned on wou
      • At least with a computer, there are LAN gaming options (although some game platforms may have LAN gaming capabilities, they don't seem to be as flexible or easy to set up, or even as well thought-out).

        Every xbox game I have ever played that supported any kind of multiplayer also supported LAN based play. In fact early on, before XBL was running, it was all the games supported. Was one of the most painless things you could experience as well. Wire up all the xboxes to a hub, and every xbox that turned on wou
          • It's similar to the PC, but doesn't involve an IP. Assuming you can still access your friends list, you can simply make a private match and invite them in. Private matches are hosted directly, so once the connection is made, you don't need to worry about a monolithic server list to play with a few friends. It's what I've been doing since this whole thing started up with Live. If I can manage to get it to sign me in along with everyone else (it happens, just very slowly), then I can set up a match.
      • You must not have played Burnout 3 or Revenge, which have Live play but no LAN mode (at least on the original Xbox). I wouldn't be surprised if other EA games are like that. Although Timesplitters 3 has LAN play and had Live play until EA shut the server down. EA had to be stubborn assholes and use their own servers instead of Microsoft's.
        And I'm assuming by "any kind of multiplayer" you mean "any kind of online multiplayer", as there are many local multiplayer only games.
    • This is one of the reasons I haven't embraced gaming platforms, and prefer to do my gaming on a computer. At least with a computer, there are LAN gaming options (although some game platforms may have LAN gaming capabilities, they don't seem to be as flexible or easy to set up, or even as well thought-out).

      Xbox (and Xbox 360, natch) has a very well thought-out, flexible and easy-to-set-up LAN gaming capability. They call it "System Link." You don't even need crossover ethernet cables, all the ports are auto-

  • Classic Microsoft support (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doug52392 (1094585) on Monday December 31 2007, @03:17PM (#21869360)
    Did anyone see the Xbox Live status at xbox.com/support? It says "Status: Users may experience intermittent issues with login, account recovery, matchmaking, and statistics. We are aware of the issue and are actively working towards a resolution. We apologize for any inconvenience.". Reminds me of a classic Microsoft joke: A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communication equipment. Due to the clouds and haze the pilot could not determine his position or course to steer to the airport. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign and held it in the helicopter's window. The sign said "WHERE AM I ?" in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign and held it in a building window. Their sign said, "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER." The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map and determine the course to steer to SEATAC (Seattle/Tacoma) airport and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position. The pilot responded, "I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer."
      • I have to agree, I've taken to just unplugging my cable from my 360, playing any game that updates stats online (Forza Motorsport 2, I'm looking at you) seems to want to hang out after submitting until you become disconnected, since this process is blocking, and occurs before saving this one act can take well over the length of time it takes to: a) sit through loading screens b) race and finish c) watch the ai race and finish the course(several times) d) finish a temple on zelda e) come back and disconnect
    • The irony is because the 360 has the best games (yes, that's my opinion) it keeps selling despite the problems. The biggest problem (RROD) is covered by a 3 year no cost warranty and Live is stable the vast majority of the time. In fact even during this "outage" I have still been able to play.

    • I do love my PS3 (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Tony (765)
      I really, really love my PS3. (Yes, I'm thinking of marrying it.) The PSP/PS3 interaction is pretty damned cool. I play the hell out of Warhawk, and Ratchet and Clank is one of the best games out there. Unreal Tournament looks like it's going to kick some serious ass.

      That said, I wish I had Bioshock for the PS3. I played Halo 3, and it was OK, but really nothing that great. Then again, I was never impressed with the Halo series, as a whole. They are good, solid games; I just never got into the story line. B
    • How did you lose your content?

      DRM sucks, but I haven't had such an onerous problem with DRM and I'm on my 3rd or 4th Xbox.

      As long as you still have access to the gamertag used to purchase the content, as long as that gamertag's signed in you should be able to use it.
      • The problem is that this week, with the XBL outages, you can't sign in as yourself -- at all. So you're stuck not being able play your own games IF you switched to a new 360 and you need your gamertag to validate ownership.
    • People keep saying it's down and it's not. It's been flaky as hell the last few days, but not actually down.
      • When you wait for two hours before getting 3 people in a game which requires 8 people, and the matchmaking times out after a few minutes... it's down.
    • From people I know that work on Live they actually can draw on other MS servers (MSN and such) if needed for things like popular demo downloads and have in the past. I don't know if the same applies to log on and matchmaking servers. So their network is scalable to a certain extent.
    • Yeah, I'll have to agree that XBL revolutionized online play. Microsoft managed to convince console gamers to pay for what PC gamers have had free for years, that takes serious skill.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DaveCBio (659840)
        Blah, blah, blah, the same old tired rant from an ignorant PC gamer. I game on pretty well every platform out there on a regular basis and there is NOTHING that comes close to the slickness and universal integration of Live. It was good on the Xbox, but it's seriously fantastic on the 360. Show me anything on the PC that allows universal friends, voice chat, messaging, score comparison, achievements, etc. on the PC without having to cobble together a bunch of different applications that all your friends nee
        • However, playing any FPS with a mouse is better than using a thumb joystick, or whatever they're called.
          • The 360 is my first console. I was such a PC gaming elitist that I never swallowed the PS2 crack. Anyway, I've played a ton of PC shooters competitively. I will agree that the mouse is much more precise and effective in a first person environment. However, analog movement with the stick is much better than the on/off movement of keyboard keys. I never could stand it (or never had the patience to get used to it) but I know PC gamers that are very good, if not some of the best with a trackball. I don't

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Surlyboi (96917)
          I love the "ignorant PC gamer" tag.

          That said, try playing online with more than 12 people at a time on an XBox. Or... choosing which server you want to play on.

          XBox live has a lot going for it, but to claim it's better than a computer on every level is specious at best.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by The Analog Kid (565327)
      Imagine if WoW didn't work for a week? Why would that be unacceptable and LIVE not working for a week be considered OK?

      That has actually indeed happened, well I don't think constantly for one week, but anyone who has played on Kel'Thuzad from the beginning can tell you, how they actually had to get up and go do something else besides playing WoW for a few days.

      Live has been a little flaky for a few days, disconnecting once or twice and one COD4 matches not starting and some little lag other than that it's b

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Liquidrage (640463)
      "Imagine if WoW didn't work for a week"

      WoW is down all the time. XBL has much better uptime then WoW.

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