Satire: Xbox Live prepares for its 'annual' holiday weekend outage [update]

Mike Schramm — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:45:00 EST

Update: The joke's on us, folks. The source article is, of course, satirical -- something we conveyed rather poorly in the story below. We've seen no signs of Xbox Live so much as flinching this holiday, so far, and it has continued to provide us with a legitimate excuse to ignore that one cousin that nobody seems to know but someone keeps inviting for Christmas lunch. If you can give us your forgiveness for the error, that would be a really fine gift.

Can't wait to get home to the family for the holiday this weekend ... and then completely ignore them with a Left 4 Dead 2 marathon on Xbox Live? You're not the only one. Microsoft is bracing itself for a flood of online gameplay this weekend, including players trying catch up on all of the games they were too busy (baking cookies and wrapping presents) to play since November, as well as all the new folks who just unwrapped new games from under the tree. It's become a holiday tradition -- ~~last year~~ two years, the outage lasted for 11 days, from the weekend before Christmas to the end of the year, and spawned not only a free game, but a class action lawsuit to boot.

Previously, the problem was compounded by most of the tech staff being offline with their families, but this year, we're sure Microsoft has both servers and staff on notice to solve problems the second a clatter happens to arise. And if not, maybe we'll get another free game. Hopefully one better than Undertow.

Satire: Xbox Live prepares for its 'annual' holiday weekend outage [update] originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take-Two's Zelnick doesn't believe in annualized GTA

Ben Gilbert — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:25:00 EST

If we took away one important lesson from Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick yesterday, during the company's investor call, it's this: it takes a lot of time to make "triple-A" games. That's why Zelnick isn't interested in annualizing the Grand Theft Auto franchise. "We don't feel that GTA oughta be an annualized franchise," he said, adding that he was "pleased" the series has been "testing new formats and new platforms" this year with two DLC expansions on Xbox Live and GTA: Chinatown Wars for DS and PSP.

Instead of pushing out a new GTA game every year, Zelnick explained that Take-Two is focused on the "balance between how long it takes to develop such an incredible title that meets consumer expectations and how long you need to make sure than an appetite has been both satisfied and whetted [for the next game]." He padded his point with phrases like "high profitability" and "resiliency of the franchise," though when taken to task over how the publisher expects to make money in a "non-GTA release year" -- and in light of projected, continued losses from its baseball franchise -- he responded, "We remain committed to that goal [of profitability] ... naturally, we are disappointed that we're not projecting to achieve that goal in 2010." Meanwhile, somewhere in California, Bobby Kotick laughed maniacally.

Take-Two's Zelnick doesn't believe in annualized GTA originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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