I am glad I built a new computer, as XBL is only working intermittently. It appears that Microsoft’s service was unprepared for the deluge of new gamers that received their Christmas consoles. As a result, several people have complained openly on Larry Hyrb’s–aka Major Nelson–blog. He has personally addressed people’s worries and complaints with the following response:

You may have noticed that the LIVE service has been having a few issues over the past few days. This includes things like signing in, matchmaking and account recovery. Not everyone has had problems, but I know some of you have and I wanted to give you and update. While the service was never completely offline, problems like this are not acceptable. The entire LIVE team has been working day and night to ensure that you can have a great LIVE experience. While we’re not done yet, I wanted to let you know that things are getting better each hour and that no one on the team is going anywhere until the job is done. Thanks for your patience.

Edit: As people have noticed, we have made good progress. We have a bit more work to do, but we’re doing much better now. I know some of you still may be having issues, and we’re working on those. Oh, and Happy New Year to those that are celebrating.

At least they are working for the money they take from you every month. I would like to see Microsoft give something like a free week of service–as WoW has done when they encountered server issues–but I doubt that will happen. Back to computer land for me!

Chufmoney

[via Evil Avatar]

Everyone should be lovin’ the new 360 dashboard update. After all, you have DivX playback, faster blade navigation, and a smoother way to look at downloadable content. But, with the good comes something that I personally find questionable: Silver Members can’t access free content until it has been out for a week.

On one hand, I can see that MS is trying to make us feel privileged and that our subscriptions are worthwhile. On the other side, I kinda feel like this is just Microsoft’s way of pressuring Silver Members into subscribing. Should a person that purchases Bioshock today not be able to download the free DLC for a week just because they don’t feel like paying 5$ a month? What if it is a service that they aren’t going to use outside the marketplace?

I guess I actually do know how I feel about it–it’s shitty! They can get anything they are willing to pay for at anytime, but have to wait for free shit, and that is wrong.

Thanks for the update, Microsoft, I really appreciate it. But could you shit a little less on my cheap ass friends?

Chufmoney

Xbox.com has recently had a face lift. If you’ve never visited the site before, you will not notice anything exceptionally special and will probably think that the site is solely an ad delivery system. Which, uh, it is. But those who use Xbox.com to check messages and see who is on-line will enjoy a few simple updates. The home screen is still mainly for advertising with a few game shout outs. But type in your gamertag information at the upper right and you are taken to your gamertag home page. Once here, you’ll probably have no reason to go to another portion of the sight. The tabs now have translucent drop downs. It makes the movement on the site very quick and less cumbersome. The Xbox Live Marketplace information is still hard to find, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Why would Microsoft make if difficult to find out what movies are coming out and when? And why do they stagger their release? I’m ranting, sorry. The messaging system for Xbox live on the website is still good and bad. It is not as user friendly as I’d like and I’m not sure why audio can’t be heard from the site. If a friend leaves you a voice message, you have to log on through you Xbox 360 to hear it. I’m sure it has something to do with some technical mumbo-jumbo that is beyond me. But it would be nice. The best thing about this minor update is that the site is cleaner, a bit easier to navigate, and is more focused around your gamertag. Hopefully updates like this will continue, with more direct links and interactions between specific games. Hey, we pay $50 bucks a year for something, right?

JaySlacks

I saw this earlier on IGN, but I wanted to wait until I could get home and confirm it, and confirm it I have: Hilary Goldstein reports that due to concerns of piracy and, basically, anyone getting to play anything for free that Microsoft wants to charge for, Microsoft has instituted a policy for Premium Downloadable Content (which the Shivering Isles is) that prevents it from being used when not signed in to Xbox Live. While many may argue that this a moot point, given the constant network connection most people use with their 360s, they would be wrong; there are obviously situations where having a 360 connected to the internet is not feasible, or beyond their control. Examples of this would include network troubles, ISP downtime, or, you know, Xbox Live being taken down for maintenance. Just hours after downloading the Shivering Isles, I find myself unable to play content I paid a premium price for, because of Microsoft’s draconian Live policies. If the timing of the scheduled Live downtime had been different, it might have been some time before this came to light, but here we are. If Microsoft’s goal is to piss off customers who have spent approximately 4000 Microsoft points in the last 7 days, then I think they’re doing a bang up job. I’m waiting for an explanation from Microsoft PR before I really flip out, but if I had bought this from a retail location rather than online I would already be at the store demanding to talk to someone about a refund and beating the crap out of the person that sold it to me. I should not have to be signed into Live, a luxury that is not always possible, to play paid, downloaded content. This is another example of Microsoft Legal and Financial getting in the way of functionality and usefulness of product; we can add it to the list along with “inability to playback “.avi” files or “use third party hard drives”, among many others. This isn’t selling anyone on the idea of a paid online service Microsoft.

-Aegies