Microsoft is one of those companies that doesn't seem to be able to find that middle ground that other businesses take for granted. You either love them, or you hate them -- there is no in between. Lately, it's been especially hard for the software giant, with negative Xbox 360 news cropping up with increasing frequency.
By now, most Xbox 360 owners have either already experienced the disappointment of the highly publicized hardware failures. It's been an expensive undertaking, but Microsoft has somehow conditioned convinced most of its loyal customers that everything is going to be all right, even when gaming forums and the Internet in general seem to say otherwise.
The Xbox 360 is an amazing device when it works, and overall, is worthy of the praise by most accounts. Unfortunately, the 360's hardware isn't the only gremlin that's been chipping away at Microsoft's already battered image. This time, Microsoft's ace in the hole -- Xbox Live -- is the source of suffering.
More on this, after the jump:
It kind of seems strange that a software giant such as Microsoft would underestimate the potential demands that new items such as map packs can place on servers, but it looks like that may have been the case with the recent release of the variety map pack for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Gamers pounced on the map pack en masse, and in the process pretty much brought Xbox Live to a screeching halt.
Some gamers were met with various connection errors on Live, redeeming Microsoft Points became impossible for others, and it wasn't long before general discord towards the paid-for service began to show up in forums and blogs (including our own). Still stinging from the last outage that lasted for the better part of a month, some Xbox 360 owners have started questioning if they are indeed getting that high level of service that they are paying for.
Overall, I'd have to say a resounding yes to that. This is the second embarrassing outage that Microsoft has had to deal with in recent memory, but as a whole, the service does seem to be pretty stable. Paid service or not, we have to come to terms with the fact that there will always be times where a loss of service is going to be a reality. Contrary to popular belief on the Internet, the 100% uptime rule is a myth. Much like your cable and telephone services, outages are to be expected from time to time.
Even so, Microsoft would do well to do a better job of forecasting potential disruptions, especially during times (like new maps for popular games are released) when common sense dictates that the current server load is going to spike to abnormal levels. In turn, they would be dodging the potential grief that big names like Microsoft have committees steered towards quieting in the first place.
The good news is that Xbox Live has recovered from the physical beating it took as a result from being unprepared for the surge in demand of its service. The bad news is that the anti-Xbox 360 crowd has probably recruited a few more people as a result -- some of the same people that have been defending it tooth and nail since bad news first descended upon the console in the first place. With the PlayStation 3 gaining favor with gamers with each passing day, and with a relatively stable online structure of its own in place for free -- this isn't exactly a good time for Microsoft to continue to drop the ball.
I just hope Sony is keeping a close eye on this, and takes the necessary steps to ensure that PS3 owners don't suffer a similar fate when their CoD 4 map pack finally arrives.
Contest:
4:46 PM on 04.06.2008
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It's a shame so many people are so quick to defend MS when they screw up.
Are people complaining about the 5 hour weekly service windows WoW has? Especially given that I can't physically access my WoW characters at least 20+ hours per month. It also costs more for a WoW account than XBL
Plus, I was lucky enough to not have any issues.
I'm mainly just here to increase morale though. =)
But I downloaded those maps and have been playing on them since friday without a single problem.
I wonder whats the x-factor regarding those who have problems and those who don't.
On the other hand, this is Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in the world. They should prepare for this, and they should be able to handle it. And certainly, people have a right to complain when a service they pay for becomes unusable because the company screwed up.
It was a little bit of a bitch trying to get points and Mr. Driller, but it only took around 20 minutes.
ZING!
The fact is that yes MS has the best online, because theirs is the only one any of us have to pay for. If they didn't then I think a good majority of us would drop the console in favor of another.
But this story isn't the first and it won't be the last. This is also response to some accumulation of bad XBLA developer reports and glitches abound in some Xbox games. The main problems are that with every bad thing that we've been hearing or experiencing, there hasn't been any news from the camp that something new or fresh will be added to make our online experience better in the wake of some fairly recent news from Sony's camp.
We are constantly reminded that PSN is free. PS3 has won the NPD sales for Jan. and Feb. PSN allows user generated content to be distributed. PS3 has BluRay. PS3 has a decent BC list if you bought the right console. PS3 is going to have XMB or whatever. PS3 has harddrives that dont cost obscene amounts of money. This is all news we've heard from this year. What have we heard from MS. GTAIV exclusive content and that is all which came to us in the middle of last year.
That's why I am upset with MS. Not that the live outages are down, but because MS showed us all that they had an amazing year in 07 which currently isn't the case in 08 especially over their only competition in Sony. I want my console to be the best console in something right now. It isn't. Xbox hate is on the rise because there hasn't been any shiny news coming from MS.
thats pretty much what Ninty has been doing with Smash Bros. Its a funnel effect. people who can't sign on will wait until later to do so when demand isnt so high. so the demand dwindles down until its at a manageable level.
I believe MS is actually doing that. Remember how it was weird that the outages last time lasted exactly a month? thats because all those first time accounts had Gold memberships for...1 month. so MS probably brought in some new servers but nowhere near the amount necessary because after the month was over there would be less demand placed on the servers. So it might not be a bad thing since servers cost money...this way the cost of the service doesnt go up.
Please let it be better than Undertow... *double crosses fingers*
*fingers feel betrayed*
My guess is the Halo community where split between getting it straight away and waiting until they where free. So there was no where near the same amount of people downloading the Heroic MP on the one day as there was people downloading the COD 4 MP.
if we do (which I doubt) it'll be probably be along the lines of assault heroes as the new one is coming out soon.
We got Undertow because a sequel will be coming out as well for that game.
the maps took forever to download but once they downloaded not a problem since. But then what type of moron thinks that something so pre known about expected day and time would just download in a handful of minutes? XBL was never down like it was during the holiday for most people.
As for Xbox as a whole this year, they have f all and its simply because they released a cack load of A+ titles for the holiday, they have NOTHING other than lost odessey and from my friends list only me and 2 other ppl bought it. So its was clearly a sleeper hit in my circle.
GTA 4 is what they are using to grab the headlines but now they are like that entertaining parrot you've heard once to much. ' gta end of april, were very excited, and exclusive content in the fall wark!! ... bobby wanna cracker!'
gear 2 november and ninja gaiden 2 in june. everything else they have like alone in the dark (which looks amazing) is pretty under hyped.
Sony on the other hand have a piss poor exuse of a marketplace clone, its at least honest by showing true pricing but the content is weak overall.
With 360 looking like the #1 winner of community base thus far, making it appear to be winning the war right now, its doing so not with the raptureous applause it invisioned but with grumbles and half hearted clapping.
Wii on the other hand is winning with sales but you cant exactly gloat to ppl unless they gave ur a friend code to gloat to them with. But then thats been nintendo since the CD was introduced to gaming. Captn Anti Piracy.
Sadly its a case of suport, xbox bought almost all of it, and is reaping the rewards, but not doing anything to improve its service, focusing on america, yet other xbox live services are piss poor in comparison. PS3 has held on tightly to a few companies and extra support but the titles its boasting about are just so far away its using up all its hype before a release date is confirmed. Wii in house only with a few 3rd party attempts.
Too much money, too little risk. Or if there is a risk it has too much money behind it (assassins creed; great game wayyyy to oversold.).
Now if Sony started doing this it wouldn't bother me but when I am paying for the service then I better not see one ****ing ad!
Microsoft has enough money to just throw around to make the best online service yet we get the short end of the stick when it comes to quality.
I just don't see how Sony can afford dedicated servers for their customers for free while Microsoft manages in cheap P2P networking but charges 50+ dollars a year for it.
Now if the PSN went down it would not bother me because there is no service charge. I pay enough already just to have internet. Besides that I have enough games for me to play offline as well. (Some of which I haven't even completed yet.)
Ok let me use some logic here, at least I'll try, using logic against angry gaming nerds with entitlement complexes is kinda hard.
Now XBL as a whole runs on various servers, its not like they one for the marketplace, its all encompassing as it where, there's a lot of data there and at any given time you about a million people playing various games.
Now, CoD4 has been on the top 2 most played XBL games for awhile, let's say 50,000 thousand people wanted the map pack and they all logged on and tried to buy it at the same time, not expecting issues is very foolish and you severely overestimate what technology is capable off.
Let me use an example of a group that D-toiders jizz all over, Steam, every single time Steam had some huge release they had tons of problems, the site working at a crawl, not being able to DL anything, its to be expected, you have so many people pinging something as it where, there's nothing on earth that could take all that without problems.
So you had to wait a few hours, DEAL WITH IT AND STOP WHINING.
XBL at the moment is working just fine, I could buy the goddamn maps if I wanted to, hell I could it when they came out, a few hours after they where released.
I had the same issue with the heroic map pack for Halo, I simply waited a few hours, hopped on again and got them with no problems, are you guys so impatient that you need it NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW?
This has nothing to do with quality, if you are still having issues then its a problem on YOUR end, I live in Puerto Rico and have the shittest internet on earth, I can download things easily, hell I got the Mass Effect DLC yesterday along with Assault Heroes.
XBL is quality, I find it amazing the service is up for so long without problems seeing as so many people use at one time, in my two years of XBL usage I only had problems on christmas, along with everyone else, an oversight they promised they won't happen again.
So please, stop your whining, stop your bitching and getting over your pathetic entitlement complex.
Man, I can't wait for the day the PSN network starts having trouble and Home crashes a lot, we'll see the same argument except reversed, I'll do my best to sift through all the blog posts and say "I told you so".
04/06/2008 17:57
Sony's service will crash, too, if they manage to get people to buy their system before the maps launch.
ZING!
the best M$ fanboy comment of the day
i have no prob with the PSN and the community is growing everyday ... and everyday i see negative comment about the PS3 from M$ fanboys like you each time there's a bad news about microshit ... every fucking day
your 360 is a piece of shit with a lots of games for now ... but next year i'll have tons of games too ... with a good console to play them ... you won't be able to tell the same about your crappy console.
"They're my maps, and I want them NOW!"
He's right, and not only because bitches don't know about his Revolver Stake.
Remember kids, when you hop on Destructoid and everybody is online too, it's very expensive and very taxing on the information super highway,
That's the worst excuse I've ever heard, I still have an atari, nes, and genesis that are all in perfect working condition (and were purchased in the same year they were released), and believe me they saw a lot of abuse in the following years; heck they still get some decent abuse every now and then.
I completely understand having a few manufacturing flaws that could result in a couple of launch consoles having problems but when a large amount (sorry I don't have a number but I know it's a large portion of the install base) of xbox owners are on their second or third replacement system then you know there's something horribly wrong.
I personally am on my third system and the only reason I didn't give up on it after the first one died is because microsoft extended the warranty. I only use the system now for exclusives, otherwise I'll play the games I want on computer or ps3. Before anything is said, yes I realize the ps3 has had it's problems too but they were as they should be few and far between. I've had no problems with it myself.
Lastly, anyone willing to continue to be raped by microsoft, as many are "conditioned" now to be ok with, is only fooling their self.
Yeah it'll probably go down and people will complain but guess what...they'll have no grounds to base their complaints on because it's a free service. Whereas with Live you're paying $50 or more a month to use it, and you just don't get enough in return to justify the cost. Nuff said.
You're right about the majority of the folks here having a massive "entitlement complex" as you put it, but let's face it, when you get ripped 50 STINKING BUCKS A YEAR for a service, you EXPECT IT TO WORK, WORK, WORK!!
M$ has all that untold millions ripped off from the XBOX live subscribers and don't you think they should've anticipated this kinda shit and spent those $$$$$ to constantly upgrade, update and improve their servers. Y'know, get a new supercomputer a month for the traffic or sumthing? The masters of the PC world can't even get sumthing elementary like THAT working properly!
Sure the same thing will happen when PSN goes down, but as Phyraks so eloquently put it, it's FREE GODDAMMIT. They don't have the same MILLIONS to give the same level of service to ITS USERS, so when it goes down, people'll be like, This sucks but hey AT LEAST ITS FREE!
Oh wait, i don't own no PS Triple either!
Ahhh.. good ol' reliable, upgradable PCs, DIY + newegg.com = WIN
I'm going to say this once more, I was already labeled a Microsoft fan boy for using logic, but what the hell.
Downtime sucks, yeah we all know that. I also think that it was brought up prior in this thread that MMO RPG's like WoW have up to 5 hours of downtime a week, and this is acceptable. Treat this with a grain of salt, and think this through with some logic.
Firstly, I'd like to state that claiming that any service should be up "100% of the time" is a complete load of horse shit, and you need to go learn about how servers, and hardware works. I would rather there be scheduled downtimes to fix hardware, than them try and pull a juggling act to use half of their servers, or some other mess that is comparable in retardation. Servers are going to be down, boo fucking hoo. Find me an online service that has never had any downtime.
Secondly, I would like to ask you guys, are you angry because the service is down, or because you're trying to find something to RAGE about. I see this as a minimal issue, no offense. When the Wii's had widespread corruption upon flashing a system update near launch, people flocked to Nintendo's defense, and claimed it was going to be okay, a year later, they release Super Smash Bros. Brawl and their underpowered hardware is at fault for not being able to read dual layer discs, and Nintendo tries to cover it up. Sony, well, Sony has some pretty shady dealings as far as hardware reliability, as well as their dealings with the media (hey, remember when they blackballed Kotaku over legitimate news? Yeah.), but oh, it wasn't anything bad. All the sudden Microsoft does something and it's fucking RAAAGE, because we haet M$, and OMG I HAET WINDOWS.
What I'm trying to say, is that while this is not rainbows and lolipops, Microsoft has done no more wrong than any other company, and I use that word specifically, they're a company, not your best friend, there is going to be downtime, get the fuck over yourselves, and learn to do something else with your time while there is downtime. Microsoft screwed up with a hiccup in their service, I don't see how this is any worse than Nintendo covering up their hardware failure.
I'm sorry but comparing Live's downtime to WoW's is completely retarded. In WoW's case, Blizzard makes it known at least a week in advance for SCHEDULED downtime, and if it so happens that there is going to be extra downtime besides the weekly norm, then they let it be known WEEKS in advance.
When Live goes down, it simply goes down. No warning, no rush to fix it; all we get is an apology a couple of weeks later (oh and in the case of the Christmas fiasco we got a crappy arcade game) and everything is supposed to somehow be better. They could've at least given everyone a fair sum of MS points to spend how we please, but not even that happened.
The difference is WoW's downtime is SCHEDULED and expected. So quit comparing Live to any online rpg. They're not similar in the least bit.
You do realize that WoW has had unscheduled downtime too you, it's less noticeable because it uses multiple servers independantly, don't you? Also, I recall Live! having scheduled downtime, it was on the first of this month, and we knew well more than a week ago, so you're point is completely void, because you've done no research.
Your second paragraph is completely stupid, because if you took the time to think about it, other online services have had unscheduled downtime, how the fuck are they supposed to give you notice when theres an issue?
There is no difference, they've both had scheduled, and non scheduled downtime, learn to research more.
I can't see it but totally agree with you.