Kotaku: power outrage

Xbox Live is Fixed. [Updated]

Owen Good — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:30:00 MST

Update: There may be a few orphans out there in the great Xbox Live power outrage of November. But Microsoft is stamping out the problems and rooting out the causes as we speak. I just got done with about three hours of very personal service over instant messenger, and I'm back online. If you still can't connect to Xbox Live, your best bet is to test the connection, get the error codes, and call customer service. They're not fooling around, this is a bigtime concern for them.

But bottom line, I have it on reasonably good authority that everything will be cool for NXE's launch on Wednesday despite this. Kudos to the XBL team working through it all on a weekend. My original post is on the jump.

Major Nelson popped on sometime last night to declare that Xbox Live's connectivity problems had been resolved, then almost immediately was hammered with comments saying in effect, no it hasn't, so he pulled back the all-clear. I know I couldn't connect at all last night, and as of 7:30 am Crecente time I still can't. And, yes, I tested the connection. Oh, the official Xbox Live status? Nonexistent, apparently. See above. (Then again, it does show me as still owning an original Xbox.)

Would someone please tell us WTF is going on, because half as many people who can connect say they can't. The New Xbox Experience hits this week, so for certain Microsoft's called everyone in this weekend and made them miserable in search of a fix. Let's just hope they can slap enough duct tape and baling twine on the servers to survive Wednesday. I'll keep my eyes peeled and update here in case they can get it repaired today. Lord, one hopes so.

Having Xbox Live Connection Issues? [Major Nelson]
Xbox Live Status [Microsoft]

Xbox Live Connectivity Issues Confirmed by Major Nelson

Owen Good — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:00:00 MST

We interrupt the fun and merriment to inform you that late last night, Major Nelson confirmed what a lot of people were reporting in message boards, forums (and to our tips) — there's some spotty connectivity issues in Xbox Live.

In the past few hours, the Xbox Operations Center noticed that large number of members were disconnected from Xbox LIVE, some more than once. Our Engineering teams are actively working to determine the root cause of this issue and to prevent it from happening again. If you are disconnected, you should be able to reconnect after a few minutes. Thanks for your patience as we work quickly to solve the issue.

Also, Xbox Live's status as per the official Xbox site:

Users may experience issues connecting to Xbox LIVE. If you are disconnected, please try again in a few minutes. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Having Xbox Live Connection Issues? [Major Nelson, thanks Andrew and many others]
Xbox LIVE Status [thanks Jeff and others]

You Got Another, oh, 39 Hours to Play Xbox Live

Owen Good — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 10:00:00 MDT

Just a reminder that come Monday, Live goes dead for 24 hours. Meantime Microsoft is larding up the weekend with a bunch of Play & Win sweepstakes. We've already mentioned the GTA IV Live Weekend, but there's also a raft of prizes being offered for Madden 09, NCAA 09, and NASCAR 09 — and, if I'm reading it right — if you go put some T-Mobile advertisement on your gamer picture and play Lego Batman, you can be entered to win some shit there, too. Then the power outrage strikes at 12:01 AM PDT Monday. This won't deliver the new Xbox Live dashboard, it's just "in preparation" for its arrival.

Calendar of Events — Play & Win [Xbox.com]

PS Store Down All Day Tomorrow

ogood — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:20:58 MDT

Just a reminder, the Playstation ~~Network~~ Store will be down from 8 am to 9 pm US Pacific Time (11 am to midnight, US Eastern, and 9 am to 10 pm Crecente). This is for the widely anticipated update to the Playstation Store.

~~So all you unemployed gamers and kids playing hooky, don't start raining ZOMG WAT HAPPEND TO PSN messages on us.~~ Besides, everyone should be doing their taxes.

How much worse can I fuck things up this weekend ...

As Playstation's ever-helpful Knowledge Center dryly describes the power outrage:

During this time, the new PLAYSTATION®Store upgrade will be taking place. As a result access to the PLAYSTATION Network will be restricted, including:
* No access to the PLAYSTATION®Store

Oh. Is ... that all?

The New Playstation Store in Action [Kotaku]