XBL users still fired up over broken service
Category: Xbox 360, Posted: 01/09/2008 at 03:24PM CST by Frank Ling, Editorial Director
Comments on the xbox.com forums, regarding server problems on Xbox Live, are still coming in loud and clear from dissatisfied users who are still struggling to play their games online.
The posts on the forum range from irate customers who are threatening to switch over to the PS3 from users who doubt that a free XBL arcade game will heal the wounds.
Most of the complaining revolves around the service still being broken and the relative silence of Microsoft in explaining why and what happened during the last three weeks of spotty service.
One rant on the Xbox live forums, by Lucard Tepesh, took a swipe at Marc Whitten, XBL's general manager, in his congratulating users for breaking records associated with the mass numbers logging on to Xbox Live.
"This is rediculous!!!! (sp) Come on M/S, when you said and i will quote "Please be patient. Xbox live is having intermittent (sp) problems, we are working around the clock to fix the problem." I have been patient for WEEKS now. We all have, all "Record breaking numbers of us.
"That means, me (a 6 year subscriber) and little jane the 2 weeks subscriber as well as ever other person on this forum. We PAY for this, its not like PS3 or Wii here. You've had weeks to get this done, you have BILLIONS of bucks and with your talk of "RECORD BREAKING NUMBERS" it seems like you just got even more money, and your going to proceed to tell us that ‘WE ARE WORKING AROUND THE CLOCK'?
"This is a joke, COD 4, HALO 3, Forza 2.... and i can't play any of them, and then you tell me that you are going to give me an arcade game free...What, are you going to let me download Spongebob Squarepants so that you can get even more money on the backside from Nickelodeon? I'll tell you what will make this barely tolerable.... Let US choose what free arcade game we want, all "Record Braking Numbers" of us.
"How many of you would really want to play Spongebob's underpants hunt?....... This is a prime example of the Corprate (sp) giant jacking around the customers and trying to make it seem like they are doing us a favor. Stop throwing your millions into advertising and TV commercials for a second and throw it into getting this fixed. Stop thinking about NEW costomers (sp) and take care of the ones you are jacking over........... Whew... ok .... i'm done.... that felt good."
It seems that a few heads will probably roll at Microsoft because nobody saw the tsunami of traffic coming during the holidays...plus the lengthy time it is taking to fix the problems.
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See, if Microsoft was smart, they would have realized that at the very least, 50% of the new consoles they sold would end up going on XBL. They could have easily beefed up the servers the day the winter update went live. Because they knew that they would get a ton of new subscribers within weeks of that date.
They really did drop the ball with this. I just want the service that I paid for to be back to normal.
I find it baffling. Microsoft only recently got the hardware issues in the rear view mirror, now this.
Both of these problems stem from poor fore sight. Testing multiple units for marathon gaming would have made the red ring of death known before production. And not to beef up servers before a huge flux of #'s because of the holidays is just insane for a company with this much experience.
I guess Microsoft didn't listen to their own hype about Xbox Live growing by leaps and bounds. If they had been following their own PR messages, they might have prepared better and could have avoided the meltdown during the holidays. Oh, the irony of it all.
Is it just me or are some people going a bit over the top with this? Sure Microsoft f**ed up, but just because there are problems with LIVE, doesn't mean you can't play your single-player games or, shock-horror, go and do something other than play the 360.
jambo - If this were the free service on the PS3, I'd agree. However, at $50/year, people expect the service to work.
That picture with the article is from the Cronulla Race Riots of 2005 in Sydney Australia. I was there when it happened so can't forget the newspaper photos, anyway... as a XBL Gold Subscriber I don't care about the outage, I got CoD 4 and TF2 on PC whilst Mass Effect and Naruto Rise of a Ninja is taking up my Xbox 360 playtime.
I can see Microsoft being very out of pocket after this.
Some people really need to get off their soap boxes. Yeah, Microsoft messed up, but some people are going a little overboard with it all.
I agree with Kester, yes it sucked because my buddy and I couldn't play halo over christmas break, but I'm not going to sue anyone about it. Even though MS should have planned better for the holiday rush, they're not totally at fault.
Hmmm... Haven't connected to xbl in a while, good job as well. :P