Xbox One Consoles Are Down (mashable.com) 104
If you are having trouble getting your Xbox One online, you are not alone. Xbox One consoles around the world have stopped working. From a report: Xbox One owners are reporting major problems with their consoles online with displays being stuck on black screens at startup, games not loading, and errors when trying to login to Xbox Live. Microsoft is aware of the situation and has promised to give more information when they have it. Within a couple of hours, the official Xbox Support Twitter account updated everyone, saying that they have identified the problem and are working on fixing it. There is no estimate on how long it will take to fix. Bad week for Microsoft services continues. Update: The issue with Xbox Live appears to have been resolved.
Curious... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just yesterday there was a post asking about what global technical disasters had not yet come to pass, suspiciously like they were plumbing the Slashdot crowd for ideas on how to finish ruining civilization. And now, here we are.
Re:Curious... (Score:4, Insightful)
hmmm online activation of local games being disrupted... idk i would suggest it is restoration of CIV and not ruining.
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Even more curious how it was magically fixed moments after my post called it suspicious. And now somehow, anonymous cowards are angry about it. Coincidence? Perhaps not...
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Well, shove stuff in the cloud and you expect to have major problems when you can't get to the cloud. What's amazing is that even if you're playing a single-player game on an xbox or playstation that you still must be connected to the internet, and that you must pay a subscription fee in order to get patches or updates. If this was tried on the PC the players would revolt, but on consoles it's treated as "normal". Ie, remember the near universal rejection of Games-For-Windows-Live, but an even more intrus
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Well, MS messing up is sort of expected. So I would classify that under "Karma" for anybody relying on them.
Reap what you sow (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly what happens when you buy in to a system that depends on online connectivity.
Fuck that. When I buy a game I want to own the game. You millennials have no idea of the pain you are in for.
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Re: Reap what you sow (Score:2)
Right.. after you spent countless hours dealing with IRQ conflicts
Computers weren't meant to be configured by idiots back then. Sorry.
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Because, whippersnapper, in our day when The Internet went down, our games were still playable.
They still are, for the most part, even on consoles. Now sure MMO's and MMO-ish games and online multiplayer will be unusable, but single-player games will be just fine and dandy.
Some years back Sony had a similar problem during the PS3 days. It was a leap year bug, IIRC. Anyway, you couldn't access PSN, or use some PSN downloads, but single-player games on disc worked fine.
And now, I could unplug the Ethernet cable from the PS4 and play offline no trouble at all. Sure I couldn't play MMO's like Star
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More to the point however, why is it a news worthy thing when an online service goes down? Plus this news report is for a fucking game console.
Ahh...youth. There was once a time, the ancient times, the times before Dice, where this type of article was the norm on the site. You see, Slashdot used to have the catchphrase "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" in which all things Tech, Online Security, Gaming, Music Piracy, and Nerd Hobby related dominated the headlines and you never really saw anything about Politics...
Then 9/11/2001 happened and drove a political wedge into the headlines as the Owners back then felt the, probably justifiable, nee
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nerds like video games, as they are one particular focus of Technology the Baliwick of nerds
Not as much as you might think. My late mother played video games and she was no nerd. Phone games in particular, she would often play a phone game at home. Had a thing for bowling games. She liked Hot Shots Golf too, though her long game needed work, she was a monster on the short game though. Her putting and chipping was better than mine.
She unlocked all the characters before I did. She did this all with serious rheumatoid arthritis in her hands. (enough to deform her joints)
That's one reason she li
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People actually care about their games, so they are more upset when games are disrupted as opposed to being unable to get to Office 365 to do work for a few hours.
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I rent and pay for pain in monthly installments so I can quit at any time.
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This is exactly what happens when you buy in to a system that depends on online connectivity.
Fuck that. When I buy a game I want to own the game. You millennials have no idea of the pain you are in for.
I'm probably in the minority here, but is anyone else kind of impressed with how quickly the issue was identified, communicated effectively by MS, and corrected? Sure, some people may have been inconvenienced for at most 3 hours, but that really isn't the end of the world. I guess if you don't follow them on Twitter you might not have known what was going on, but all you'd have to do was ... I don't know... wait? I mean, just look at this news story. If you were not paying attention during these 3 hour
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I'm probably in the minority here, but is anyone else kind of impressed with how quickly the issue was identified, communicated effectively by MS, and corrected? Sure, some people may have been inconvenienced for at most 3 hours,
No. 3 hours is not impressive. Loads of users will have had this problem, and will remember how lame it is to depend on online connectivity.
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will remember how lame it is to depend on online connectivity
This sort of thing has happened before and it hasn't caused the effect you desire yet. Because it is just a minor temporary inconvenience.
Besides, NTP? Update repos for Linux distros? Plenty of things use online connectivity and not all connectivity is bad.
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"Besides, NTP? Update repos for Linux distros? Plenty of things use online connectivity and not all connectivity is bad."
What a disingenuous response. That stuff doesn't prevent starting up. (And you can use a GPS as your time source.)
Proprietary software is always unwise. (Score:3)
A clear example of how software non-freedom (proprietary, user-subjugating software) hurts users. This is a relatively minor, therefore fortunate, example in that (as far as the Xbox goes) it's chiefly for recreational use and nobody's lives depends on this. But as more important systems take on the same network-bound DRM schemes, people will be needlessly impoverished, needlessly suffer reputation damage, needlessly lose jobs, and even needlessly die from things like this. It's a good thing that medical eq
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No, Steam had its daily maintenance the day BEFORE yesterday, you moron.
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Who needs to brick them at the same time when the solders wear out.
Sorry, just bitter that our lightly played PS3 is getting the yellow light of death.
Good to know. Currently playing Elite. (Score:2)
I'm on the Distant Worlds 2 expedition. ... Guess I'll have to turn off my wireless and unhook my Xbone from the LAN if I fire it up tonight.
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Or you could try talking and interacting with people in real life.
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Or you could try talking and interacting with people in real life.
Whoooo, slow down there. Lets not be too hasty! Maybe the service will be back up by then?
Sheesh, talk to people, like that would ever happen.
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Dude, what the hell man?
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Elite Dangerous can't be played offline, it requires connectivity because of how the ED economy/missions/factions work. Even if you want to play in Solo mode, the game still needs online access.
I hope eventually they'll include a true offline mode, but that's probably not a priority for FDev.
I play on PS4 and play rarely (though I do have the Thrustmaster t-flight HOTAS 4) so I don't have a ship capable of doing DW2. I thought about making the trip to Pallaeni to see them off, but it would have been almos
Wait, so did being offline keep you from playing (Score:4, Interesting)
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My thoughts were that MS was experiencing some sort of DoS attack, because if you kept trying to get in, eventually it'd let you. And once you were in, game-play was fine, from what I saw.
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Ha, some games on my ipad require constant internet connection despite not actually needing this if you're not engaged in a silly pvp side-game. I have noticed some mobile games now state if they don't need a network connection.
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This was true even back before I traded in my first gen iPad for something like $50 in store credit.
It got so bad, I would download an app, put the iPad into airplane mode and launch the app, and if the app complained it couldn't talk to the internet, it got immediately uninstalled.
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That's seems unlikely. In my experience, you can play any normal offline game, disc or downloaded, without an internet connection. I've seen partial outages before (being unable to sign in was the last one, I believe), and I could still play all my games just fine. I've also played games when my entire network has gone down on rare occasions.
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Generally no, at least similar issues don't on the PS3/PS4, except for games that require online connectivity: MMO's, mulitplayer shooters and the like.
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XBox One was supposed to be online-only even though it uses a disc drive, but due to backlash (and jeering from Sony), Microsoft changed their mind at the last minute before launch.
Next generation, however...
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Five years ago, I was one of those guys who was like "If I can't buy a physical discs for it, then I'm not buying that console" . Then I realized how fucking annoying it was to have to find the appropriate piece of plastic to stick in the machine every time I wanted to play the game (especially when 99% of the game's files are installed directly to the Xbox hard drive anyway). Now I only buy the downloadable version of games, way more convenient. If the Blu-Ray drive disappeared from the next Xbox consol
SNES, NES, Genesis, Atari 2600 (Score:1)
all still work!
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The System Is Down. (Score:2)
"Light switch rave" anyone? [youtube.com] ;)
Atari 2600 (Score:1)
Atari 2600 never had this problem. I don't remember waiting for updates to finish or long boot times either.
Same for Magnavox Odyssey, Intellevision, Colecovision, NES, TurboGrafix or Sega Genesis.
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SNES, Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, XBox , Wii, XBox 360 ...
Connected games has led to several major flaws that have made them un-appealing to me.
1) You can't run them fully offline, so a place like a cottage doesn't work
2) Game quality is shit because they don't bother to finish it since they know they can update it
3) Your privacy is in the shitter
4) They seek to monetize everything, after you've alrea
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All of the consoles that you mentioned worked by mashing the game directly into the motherboard. In fact, if I recall correctly, none of those consoles that you mentioned would boot without a game in the slot.
You are correct. But they would boot without an internet connection. And some server being down halfway across the country, or world, wouldn't cause you to not be able to play the game you paid for.
On-line game is non-starter for me ... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is sadly why I refuse to own a game console which requires an internet connection.
When my XBox 360 started displaying ads, it got disconnected from the network never to be connected again. When the XBone was coming out and MS was saying "it must be on-line", I knew that was the end of console gaming for me.
First, because I don't trust companies like MS to suddenly decide that content I've paid for is no longer available to me.
Second, because I don't trust the competence of MS to maintain such a connected device, which they've been proving in spades with Windows 10.
Third, because as an old fart who doesn't play on-line games, there is no benefit to me to have my video game on the internet, other than to put a microphone in my living room and hope that MS plays nice. I'm too cynical to hope that.
Fourth, because fuck you with your ads, analytics, and other pointless on-line shit that is hostile to me as the one who bought the fucking console in the first place.
I'm afraid I have no sympathy for a massive outage no doubt caused by Microsoft's new-found use of everyone as beta testers, and when my older XBox 360 dies and I can no longer play Skyrim in a completely off-line console, that will be the end of my gaming.
I just don't see how I would trust a platform like this.
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Sure, many games try to lure you in the online-trap by touting what great adventures would lie ahead if playing online, but I could not care less.
Betcha (Score:3)
I bet someone let a certificate somewhere expire. I'd put money on it!
How is this just accepted? (Score:2)
How did people come to accept the disaster of modern consoles with convoluted menus, tons of bloat, app stores, online dependencies, etc? All garbage that exists only to make more after-sale profit off the suckers. Modern consumer electronics are so consumer hostile and yet nobody seems to care. It only gets worse every year.
Re:How is this just accepted? (Score:4, Insightful)
Many of us care, but we're called Luddites, old men, and paranoid.
We should embrace modern technology and stop being so cranky we're told.
Meanwhile people who know almost nothing about setting up computers or a network are buying connected devices, and letting them have free rein on their network with shit like UPnP, which just turns off all the security.
They find their creepy baby monitor talking in strange voices to their children. They buy a Barbie which uploads everything their child to someone's server.
Hell, they install locks that allows Amazon to open your door to strangers.
Congratulations, you've put complex networked devices with major security ramifications to people who can barely operate their TV remote.
But it's people like me who have been in IT for 25+ years who are the ones trying to explain why this is a terrible idea, and being dismissed as alarmist. OK, well, fine, let's ignore what I do for a living and how 6 months ago you could barely access your own wifi.
Everyone is so obsessed with their connected gadgets they've stopped listening to the people they used to ask how to get onto the interwebs. Because they're all experts, and the devices undermine their security for them.
They all want shiny and easy, but they have no idea of what else is happening.
The upshot of all of this is now I just simply refuse to help or answer questions, because they're clearly experts now.
I had to explain to my parents when they bought their first laptop that I was a two hour flight away, that I couldn't see their screen, had no idea what they'd done, and can't just magically divine their problem over the phone. They bought a Geek Squad package that day.
So, I care about how this affects me, but the people buying the connected toilets and fridges? They're on their own.
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A lot of people just assume this stuff is safe because there are smart people who worked on them and in any case they wouldn't push this stuff out to the public unless it was well thought out and didn't have security bugs. Those people are wrong of course. Those people who have been working on computers for decades however realize just how dysfunctional everything is behind the scenes.
Consumers are now the alpha testers, and we have continuous roll-out of changes without spending any time running through
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Remember 15 years ago when you would turn off the console, put in the game, turn the console back on, and start playing?
Yes, and that is still the case now, for most console games. Say my internet goes down, I can still play all the Diablo, Skyrim, Minecraft I want. What I won't be able to do is play games with online multiplayer like MMO's, MMO-ish games, etc etc.
Microsoft's SSO system was down yesterday (Score:3)
Office 365 stopped working so I couldn't use my work email.
Anything that used "login.microsoftonline.com" as an authentication provider stopped working.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the XBox issue too.
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Which should pretty much highlight the idiocy of using any on-line service from Microsoft.
Isn't the point of all of these cloud services redundancy and failover? So either MS was too fucking lazy to apply these things to their own stuff, or too incompetent to have been believed in the first place.
If they have outages on two of their major cloud platforms in
That's Rich (Score:2)
Apple shuts down small experiments and buys giant "muh Privacy" billboards in Vegas, but also forces iOS users to use Google's search, the largest surveillance apparatus there is.
For eight billion reasons per year (do as they say, not as they do).
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It defaults to Google (which is bad), but it lets you set ot Google, Bing, DDG, and I think a couple of others. It's available via there settings.
Just like you can opt out of a lot of other privacy invady things. It's annoying that you have to, but it is nice that you can.
I wondered why ... (Score:2)
... mine didn't work.
Any word on when they'll be back up?
Enjoy your DRM laden devices (Score:2)
This is why I don't own any "modern" game consoles. Everything up to about the PlayStation 2 was awesome. After that, the DRM aspect became waaaaaaaaaay too onerous.
I had a PS3 because someone didn't want theirs anymore. I bought a couple games for it, but I am unsure of whatever became of that console. The first game I bought required a "patch" that was greater than a gigabyte. I literally was not permitted to play this game I just bought until I connected the PS3 to a network and downloaded the update.
Fuc