Kotaku: Albert Penello

Microsoft Says Xbox Live Outage Due To Server Strain

Michael McWhertor — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:04:28 MST

The weeks long connection troubles many Xbox Live users have experienced since the holidays was due, according to Microsoft, to heavy Xbox Live server load brought on by a record number of users attempting to access the service. Xbox group marketing manager Albert Penello told us that "It's wasn't a malicious thing." He explained "We had the biggest concurrent day we've ever had on Live. We had more people than ever signing up on Live, it was 9 million, then 10 million, and it literally was that a lot more people were trying to get on, sign up and play than we had expected over Christmas."

The continued problems were a result of not simply too many people trying to connect and play on Live, but also that too few Xbox Live team members were in the office to react. "It's easy when we're all the office in November, but on December 25th, it's harder to get a hold of everybody," Penello said, later adding "I hope people feel like [giving away a free Live Arcade game] is a fair make good for the inconvenience."

Penello also came to the Live team's defense, noting that "I'd also say in seven years, this has happened maybe zero other times, but I can't remember a time when, other than the slow downloads we had when we launched Video Marketplace, we have had a service outage that wasn't planned."

While Microsoft's Penello and Jeff Bell gave us the impression that the problem is largely addressed when we asked at CES, some of us at Kotaku are still having connection issues, specifically gamertag recovery unresponsiveness. Unfortunately, I'm away from my Xbox 360 and can't report on my own successes or failures with the service. We've heard fewer complaints from readers over the past few days, but still want to hear from you if you're having troubles.

Xbox 360 Backward Compatibility Updates "Winding Down"

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:20:00 MST

Speaking with Albert Penello, group marketing manager for the Xbox 360, at CES this week, we touched on the future of the Xbox past. The most recent update to the list of original Xbox games that are playable on the Xbox 360, bringing the total to 465 last gen titles, could very well be the last, according to Penello. "I don't know if we have plans to do any more releases," Penello said "It feels like we kind of hit the point of diminishing returns there. I know with the Xbox Originals, there are still things happening there, but in terms of a lot of engineering work around bringing out new titles, I think they're winding that down."

He pointed out that Microsoft's promise to focus on the "top selling" original Xbox titles has been, from a corporate standpoint, delivered upon. "For the most part, we've crossed off games that people want to play," he said, adding that "There's always going to be a notable exception here or there."

Penello noted that, outside of Halo 2, internal data points to low numbers of backward compatible games being played on Live, with BC updates "not being downloaded that much anymore."

While some of the more fondly remembered Xbox games, like Otogi and The Chronicles of Riddick, haven't made the list yet, Penello tells us not to hold our breath. "At this point the stuff that's left is work per title, every title now is almost a one-off. Right now we have to think, are we really going to do 300 one-off titles? I know it's not exactly the answer everyone wants to hear, but I feel like it's time."

Watch for more from our interview with Penello later.

Microsoft Will Consider Going Blu-Ray, If Consumers Demand

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:20:00 MST

Responding to news that Warner Bros. opted to put its eggs in the basket of Blu-ray exclusively last week, Microsoft execs told Reuters that the company would consider a Blu-ray player add-on for the Xbox 360, should consumers show interest in such a product. Group marketing manager Albert Penello said the decision would be up to "consumer choice; and if that's the way they vote, that's something we'll have to consider." Penello said that he didn't consider that Warner's decision to drop support for HD-DVD would have a "significant impact" on the console war. He also confirmed, in a way, that it was a "bummer."

Microsoft's Xbox could consider Blu-ray support [Reuters]