Xbox Live Issues: Why Haven’t We Heard From Microsoft?
By William on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 9:59 PM PST In Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Microsoft, Microsoft
I have been curious about that answer for days myself. I really expected the Microsoft PR machine to start rolling out some answers for us. I assumed that the worst possible PR move was for them to leave us all in the dark. New information has surfaced from Major Nelson……
Apparently the Texas lawsuit against Microsoft has a lot to do with the lack of information. In the weekly Major Nelson podcast, it was revealed that Microsoft can no longer update us on the situation due to legal issues. I’m not sure if this is spin, or if they have been instructed by higher powers to keep silent. I can certainly understand that it’s sometimes unwise to make public statements in the middle of a court case, but Microsoft needs to consider the gamers who really need some answers.
Hopefully we’ll hear some positive news about this soon.
Via Xboxic
Yay corporations.
Xbox live has issues. Such as $10 a month. No way I’m paying. Just gonna live without multiplayer on my $60 games. Saw a PS3 for about $500 today. Microsoft, step it up.
They just wanna steal your money away thats why I dont have a 360
Still gonna wait till ps3 price reallly drops. 
XBL isn’t $10 per month btw.
XBL is $7
Erathoniel, go buy your ps3. At least that way I won`t have to put up with your bitching on xbox live
XBL is a dollar a week. Do your math.
$50 dollar card…one year! (plus one free month)
hmm 52 weeks in a year so lets see…thats about 96 cents per week not counting the extra 4 weeks. with the extra 4 its about 89 cents…
thats $4.32 or $4.00 a month (this is in US dollars)
do your fucking math, seriously.
(rough calculations)
4 dollars a week for what?
Sony’s working on a whole online virtual system for free, Home. When it’s here Live will be crap compared to PSN.
Hmm, that’s a really interesting take on it. Things can get so complicated, and all we want to do is play a few games.
They have your money, and that’s all they care about. That’s why they’re not responding.
As for paying for multiplayer gaming on a console you’ve already spent a couple of hundred on – well, let’s just say I’ll stick with the PC.
i really just don’t feel like paying them anything anymore they lost me as a customer im done with this junk as in finished
Hands up who plays MMOs, anybody? Is paying 10 bucks a month worth it for just one game? Nope thought not, $50 ( less than a dollar a week) for a whole year of unlimited gaming on a whole variety of games, is however worth it.
You get what you pay for and with the Sony service you’re paying nothing and so they don’t have to provide a quality service, I have a PS2 with which I used to play SOCOM and several other games online, even at quiet times there were nasty lag spikes even with just 2 or 3 players in the server, it just wasn’t able to compete with Live, there aren’t any PS3 games with online features that interest me at the moment (Metal Gear Online may change that) even the upcoming Resistance 2 with it’s supposed 60 player matches (why hello there lag city).
I’ve yet to sample the online PS3 functionality as I’m not exactly rich so buying a PS3 is out of the question, for now I’m more than happy with Live, I pay about £35 every year which is one days pay for most folk.
The outage over Xmas was just as much our fault as it was Microsoft’s, so many people got a 360 over the holiday, something MS wasn’t expecting and as such they hadn’t been prepared for such an influx of Live users and while they are offering an Live Arcade game as compensation for the problems they don’t have to.
Everyone is just overreacting badly.
I’ve never been a big fan of XBox Live for one simple reason: many games require you to have Gold in order to access their online component. If I pay $60 for a game ($10 more than the PC version), I damn sure expect that I will be able to access all the features of that game. When I can’t (yes, Guitar Hero III, I’m STILL looking at you), I get upset, and justifiably so.
If developers/publishers want to make parts of a game inaccessible without a live subscription, they should make two versions of the game available. One with no online support whatsoever at a lower price, and a full-featured version. Failure to do so is simply greedy on their part.
Of course, a lot of this can be laid at Microsoft’s door, as they need these titles to require Gold in order to get your money for subscriptions. Oh, and don’t forget to mention the cost of the wireless adapter for the 360, since many people don’t have a convenient net connection in easy cable range of their console. I’m beginning to think that the 360 division of MS is inhabited by sophists.
Oops. I forgot to respond to Dragon above. There are well over 10 million people playing MMO’s. How many XBox 360 users are there? How many Gold members? MMO’s are more prevalent than the 360 all by themselves. Plus, those companies that produce them constantly add new, meaningful content to their game at no charge to subscribers. That’s a lot more than one can say for XBox Live.
Actually Ron, I’d say 100% of that blame is on Microsoft’s shoulders, since it’s their system and there’s no avenue for developers to create an online aspect to their games without the use of Live.
MMO’s, however your thoughts on them, are here, and they (meaning WORLD OF WARCRAFT) do indeed have millions of players. (WORLD OF WARCRAFT HAS OVER 9 MILLION ALONE>>> THEY HAVE THE MAJORITY SHARE)