Major Nelson speaks about recent Xbox Live issues

I haven't been able to log into live since the 23rd. I'm annoyed to say the least.

I love how everyone complains "why do I get ads on a service I pay for?"

Have you ever bothered to turn on the TV? I pay too much to Comcast each month and I get 16 minutes or more an hour of ads. That's a quarter of my viewing time, which I'm paying for, that's used for advertising. So XBL has a couple ads for a video game or accessory, so what?

Just imagine these new owners who got Xbox Live for Christmas, they can't even understand why their parents paid for it!

First, call a fb if you want but unfortunately the PS3 is not an option for me, the controller and the games are the reason. I hate the analog positioning and I play tactical shooters almost exclusively.

I have to say though, I think the PS3 is by far higher quality and more reliable than the 360 in a technical sense. Once (if) some good tactical shooters come out for the system and a third party makes a better designed controller I would love to buy it.

Second, when something is not right, I'm not going to bury my head in the sand. These current issues on Live are TOTAL BS. Also, I have to say I've noticed a decline in the service since the Summer.

This latest batch of problems is just icing on the cake. Microsoft needs to do a giant update, or rebuild, mainly just something - ANYTHING - that FIXES the problem because it will eventually become so annoying for me I won't even play it anymore, recently it's been like ten years ago playing PSO on dial-up, connection wise.

Oh XBL is down again tonite...we should get some more of this "stimulating" and "balanced" real soon!

#1 you can go on the ps3 web browser and download free music movies pictures themes even other problems 2 the hdd or a mem stick or flash drive all 4 free if u know where 2 look. ms you pay 2 get adds shoved in your face and everythink else but then u can't do anything else u will never hold in your hands showtime pay radio no adds and you pay a premium cuz that's how they make money. i fuckin feel sorry 4 anyone with a 360 their copycat non original and will go under in 08

I don't see how live 'shoves' ads in our faces. On tv, you are either watching your program or watching commercials. On live, the ads are in a box somewhere on the dashboard(or in games like Crackdown, on billboards) and you don't get an interruption of your game. It is just there and you can ignore it if you want. I don't see anyone complaining about television commercials considering the fact that advertising funds your programs. So live makes some money selling ads that are unobtrusive and in no way interrupt your game time. So what, that is a much better business model for consumers.
Yes, this outage is unacceptable considering this is a time of year that people get a chance to play their games. People get time off from work or school and have the opportunity to play around the holidays. A week of downtime is significant to people like that and there should be some form of compensation.
And as for the online service, Live is the best of the three. The Wii has no online multiplayer and the PSN is still growing. I think it can become as good or better than Live but for the time being, it is inferior. Being free isn't good enough to overcome what it lacks. Their network also hasn't been tested by the same user demands that Live has to deal with. When the numbers are comparable, then try arguing about service. Until then you are comparing apples to cats.

Now, quit complaining about the ads and come up with a compelling argument. Preferably one based in fact.

My roommate and I both have 360's the apartment. I haven't had any issues with my account - the only problems have been slow matchmaking in Halo. However, my roommate can't even login on his xbox. I figured the issue would be affecting people based on region or something, but it's just weird when random accounts don't work.

on doing this with my ps3 anyway what r xbots on a compaq right now? hit me up PSN Qraze #1_in_the_hood_G!!

Where's my money? Can't find it, I saw Microsoft take it.

Ah, so there was a problem. I tried to grab Castlevania: SotN off of the Marketplace, and it kept telling me my credit card number was wrong...so my money went to the PSN and I bought it for the PS3 (still a great game, even without Achievements).

In my defense (so as not to seem inpatient), I asked someone on my friends list, and they told me it was because I let my LIVE subscription lapse. That initial month was all I've really had it, so I didn't know...

"we wont have any more major problems again for a long time."- ssuk

I don't think you're stupid, you may just have selective memory.
Xbox live goes down a lot. It's really not the most reliable of services.
Sure this specific instance may not happen again, but you're naive if you think we've seen the last of Xbox live outages.

It seems to have gotten worse not better, i didn't really have any problems and now they appear to be popping up for me. Bah damn you Xbox Live.

Have had zero problems here during all of this stuff going on. But hey, all you PSN fans get back to that protein folding and waiting for Home to be released and give you something else to stare at on the PS3 besides the fingerprints, Coke can rings, and "KILL ME NOW" written in the dust collecting on top of your wonderful systems.

It's been up and down since Halo 3 was released. It's probably errors or a massive overload in the video playback system. That's a lot of data going through the servers. If there's a million people playing Halo 3, that's over a TB of information in under 10 minutes. It's all speculation, but I have a feeling that's where the problems lay.

Anyone else get the mental picture of Microsoft technicians looking like Team Fortress 2 Engineers, running around and frantically banging on the burning servers and switches with huge wrenches to destroy all the sapper charges placed on them by Sony Spies? :-D

i've been playing mass effect just fine the last few weeks, guess i didnt notice these problems

They still seem to be able to get their advertising on my dashboard quick enough.

OH THANK LORD.

I thought I was the only one with these problems....

Major Nelson can Kiss My Grits while he writes me a check for termination of service and buying back this worthless console.

I switched to console gaming and the Xbox for the online aspect, but the centralization of online overlords that M$ has implemented has shown to be its greatest weakness (all eggs in one basket), and the design and management of poor individuals.

Three of the four nights in the past nine I and friends have dealt with this issue, and the one night we actually got on was fraught with Live disconnects. Add to this on top of the miserable Halo 3 launch week network issues, it'd be better for those affected had they played on a free network.

To pay for something you cannot use is bad business, but as a good friend has said repeatedly, "Bill Gates is the Devil." I'm inclined to agree with him.

Yeah yeah service is down big deal. Well, it kind of is a big deal. Any die hard gamer knows that the holidays are prime gaming time. So what tools at M$ didn't make boosting their Live servers around the holidays a priority. Bad business. Paying for playing online was one of the things that MAJORLY urked me about the XBOX360. But I went with it because it had more games and a bigger "following" then the PS3. And it was cheaper. But IMHO 50$-60$ a yr for online play seems a bit of a stretch considering PS3 is...FREE. To go from free to 50$ bucks seems disproportionate. I could see $5 or $10 bucks. Sure PS3 doesn't have as large of an online crowd so they are running into some of the same problems but all that cold hard earned cash the M$ is getting from Live account they should have been able to keep their servers up and running around the holidays. Inexcusable. IMHO. And one more reason for people to get a PS3 who are on the fence...

Ok what? I've been a member of Xbox live since the xbox days joyfully playing Halo with million other users. Never had a problem. Bought a 360 last year, signed up for xbox live again on the same day. And from my experience, never had a problem with live. And I'd play almost every day, and if I didn't play, my brothers were playing. So while I understand that there were a few hiccups mentioned on gaming websites, I've never had a real problem with xbox live which is why I have no problem paying the $50 a year.

Which is why I can't believe the argument that xbox live is down all the time. How is that possible if whenever I'm playing, or my brothers are playing, xbl is working just fine. I will say that the only time I've had trouble with live is when my connection is sucking dick(this happens alot, my connection is a whore). But even during the halo 3 launch I had no problem getting in a few matchmaking games. So the only reason I can think of of why this thread is getting plagued with, "BLAAAARGH MICROSOFT SUCKS!!" are trolls. sad little trolls who come in here, bitch, and go back to their pitiful existence. Which makes me sad that there are people like that.

Look. Just because you paid for something, doesn't mean it can't break. If you honestly think like that when you give your credit card number, you're just going to be disappointed time and time again.

Man all you people getting angry and talking about ps3 are morons. Yes its a shame we pay ofr XBL and its gets a little wonky for a week or 2. But think for a second. Thats only like $2-3 in the end. Nothing to get upset about. Sure free week extension onto all gold accounts would be a good compensation but dont fret if you dont get it. PSN free? Who cares if PSN paid you to use it, its complete garabge compared to XBL. Your comparing apples and oranges. XBL allows me to have friends lists, voice chat, messaging, msn integration, organization, marketplace. There really is no comparison at all. An alternative is not selling your 360 and buying a wii/ps3. How the fuck is that gonna help? Then you still wont be able to play the better games online on those networks because you cant play 360 games on those consoles. Remember XBL services are free for silver members. So microsoft needs to charge to actually play online for the better servicce. I would gladly pay $100 a year for XBL. And yet, you can buy 1 year for $25 off ebay (be careful tho) Stop being so cheap people.

Luckaly for me, Ive been playing Mass effect and eternal sonata since xmas and they are 1 player games so the live thing has not bothered me other then not being able to log in properly.

lol, its really sad to see people being so dissapointed about microsoft services. Bad MS!

They have done a wonderful job on trying to make the consoles to behave or offer the same advantages as de PC platform. Sadly, they are still getting the fix on that. Good work to MS...but take time to actually UPGRADE to better services, while selling millions and millions of XBX Live accounts.

oh and by the way....PC Gaming FTW!

I was having problems with Live about four weeks ago, the people saying they haven't had any issues in two years must not be going on Live regularly. Part of me understands that nothing is perfect and so give MS some leeway to fix issues that no one has really had to deal with before. The other half of me is pissed off because I'm paying for a service that I can't access through no fault of my own. In the end it's only hurting MS. A lot of "new" 360 owners are going to try the free trial, think that Live sucks ass, and not pay for membership. I imagine MS is frantic at the moment sweating over how many new memberships they COULD have gotten if not for these issues. What would you think of you were a new 360 owner and couldn't even log on to Live? MS is doing it's typical "don't talk about it and maybe no one will notice" way of doing business. Instead of being as forthcoming as possible with information, they leave it to the paying customer to hunt down any sparse information they can get. Unfortunately, Wii and PS3 online are a joke at the moment, so there's not much of an alternative for online console gaming.

fuck these spybots

Dont even talk to me about XBL. XBL, I am so mad at you!

I did manage to log 3-4 hours on TF2 this weekend, which is as much as I wanted to get out of it. There was lag, there were drops, there was dashboard misbehavior. But it wasnt that bad. I never tried to recover my tag anywhere.

And when I got tired of online, I went to Best Buy and got AssCreed for $40. Great game, and it doesnt even support XBL.

Soooooe ... yeahhh! All feathers still in cap, boots shiny and buckle swashed!

i dont wanna sound like a jerkwad or anything...but theres something about major nelson that kinda irks me....i think its the way he stares into your soul when he is talking to you in the videos on xbl marketplace...ehh it kinda creeps me out...sorry....