Warning: this is a major gripe posting directed towards Microsoft and the Xbox Live service. I, like many other Xbox 360 owners, sat down in front of the console this past holiday weekend hoping for hours of online enjoyment with Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare (COD4). However, instead of fragging others with an MP4, a frag grenade, or a knife stab, most of us spent countless minutes if not hours dealing with all sorts of Xbox Live network issues. Everything from network timeouts to server outages to waiting for the 360 to connect for minutes on end. Don’t believe me? Check out this thread over at the Xbox 360 support forums.
At first I thought the problem was on my end. I started up the Xbox 360 console on Friday night hoping to further my online experience with COD4.. yet my Xbox Live profile would not connect with the Live service at all. After numerous attempts, I would finally connect only to lose connections 50 percent of the time while playing a game in COD4. Was it my router or my cable connection? Restarted the router and cable modem but that certainly didn’t help matters at all.
That’s when I logged onto Xbox.com to see what others were experiencing and sure enough, this was a widespread problem.
What made things particularly bad was the near non-acknowledgment from Microsoft about any sort of problem. If it was just me or perhaps a few individuals I could understand.. but folks - just look at this thread. It was ridiculous. If you’re running a 24/7 gaming network, you need to staff it appropriately and more importantly - you need to keep your members updated because someone somewhere is up around the world.
Oh yes.. there was indeed a status page within the Xbox Live support section but that status page kept saying Live was up and running. Err Microsoft - that would be a no? Who exactly is monitoring the data centers here? Geez!
Ironically, if Microsoft kept their users posted about the network status, I’m sure people would have been far more forgiving. However, the lack of responses from Microsoft and the fact that this occurred throughout the holiday break was absolutely ridiculous.
Consider Microsoft - how many new Xbox 360 console owners were there this Christmas/New Years? I bet there were a fair amount - especially since it was hard to find a Nintendo Wii and the PS3 is still somewhat worthless without solid content. You had your chance to really make an awesome impression but what do you do? You have a screwed up Xbox Live network experience - especially for everyone playing COD4 - perhaps the best game of 2007.
Ah yes.. things appear to be normal again but guess what? Most of us are back at work now too. Why wasn’t this addressed when most of the world was on break? Why oh why Microsoft? A little acknowledgement please? some credit to all the Xbox Live subscribers out there? Come on!!
Ok.. gripe fest is over..
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