Master Chief breaks Xbox Live

by Dustin Burg { Sep 26th 2007 at 10:30AM }

That's right, we've been hearing reports that throughout the evening Master Chief decided to pick a fight with Xbox Live, Xbox Live accepted the challenge, and then Master Chief promptly pummeled the crap out of poor Xbox Live. We guess that's what happens when Halo 3 comes to town.

Throughout the day yesterday and into today's early AM hours, Xbox Live and Xbox.com have been acting funny, not responding and have just been unreliable. These Xbox Live problems are associated with the release of a little game called Halo 3 and everyone going online at once, ultimately causing Xbox Live to take a nose dive. Though, the good news is that the problems seem to have been rectified for the most part (there may be a few hiccups throughout the day), but from what we can tell everything seems to be working just fine (Xbox.com's Xbox Live status says "up and running"). So, it looks like we're in the clear, but who would have thought that a multi-million copy selling game would cause Xbox Live to buckle? Really, who would have thought?

Tags: bungie, bungie-studios, halo3, xbox-live

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

xenocidic @ Sep 26th 2007 10:36AM

I thought the map of the world that showed lights wherever people were online with Halo 3 was quite keen.

I think when I looked there was almost 130,000 people online.

Adeepond Harris @ Sep 26th 2007 10:39AM

Notice how Xbox Live works now, when all the little kiddies are in school.

Jason @ Sep 26th 2007 10:53AM

here's what i want to know : how many dollars did they sell yesterday?

Crashman06 @ Sep 26th 2007 10:44AM

@2

...And responsible adult gamers like me are at work. So that leaves... what, drunk, lazy college kids?

gotoman @ Sep 26th 2007 10:48AM

Right because we who have jobs don't have anything to do with it either

rob paek @ Sep 26th 2007 10:48AM

I wondered what took so long for someone to write about Halo 3 messing up Xbox.com. You can read a brief tid bit on it at my blog: http://pekosrob.blogspot.com

Adeepond Harris @ Sep 26th 2007 10:48AM

Notice how Xbox Live works now, when all the little kiddies are in school.

Elliot J @ Sep 26th 2007 10:49AM

Strange, I had no problems at all yesterday. I was playing co-op with my buddy all night and it ran absolutely perfect. Can't wait to try out some 4 player co-op now!

DemonG @ Sep 26th 2007 10:50AM

And we don't have lectures that range from 1 hour to 3 hours, then labs, then a job, then studying.

So really, it must be the underachieving adults that are breaking LIVE ;)

Adeepond Harris @ Sep 26th 2007 10:53AM

@3 and 4
No, I was just looking at it with respect to the time zones. I live in the eastern time zone. My friend lives in the Pacific. So when it's night over here the majority of children are out of school, while the great workers of this country are still hard at work. When the guys get off of work and need their time with Halo 3 after a hards day work, there's all this prepubescent children clogging the servers. Oh and it's more likely that a child skips to school to play Halo, than a mature adult skipping work. Didn't mean to offend anyone who gets up in the morning and heads to work.

Crashman06 @ Sep 26th 2007 11:00AM

@9

Sorry, jumped on that too quickly. I see you point! Guess I'm just bitter because I'm locked up in here and not at home getting my virtual brains blown out because, as much as I love Halo, I still suck at it

Dan_C @ Sep 26th 2007 11:00AM

Whenever I was playing multiplayer last night it would say roughly around 12000 people online. I figured that meant just for that server because with more than a million preorders, I can't see only 12000 people being online at once

Mishke @ Sep 26th 2007 11:08AM

I dunno if it was due to that or not, but I was playing co-op last night with 1 other, and I was getting pretty good lag...it was manageable, but it was definitely jumpy. Then I was playing with 3 others a bit later, and it was fine...dunno what the deal was there.

Jim Halpert DM @ Sep 26th 2007 11:09AM

@ 11 it's okay man.(and yeah I'm the guy @9, it just showed my name wrong) Oh, and we college students aren't all lazy drunks, I worked hard to get where I am. I'm here so I can get a good job.

Tommy @ Sep 26th 2007 11:09AM

I burned a vacation day to "skip" work and play. Multiplayer worked fine until that evening, say around 10 PM Central. Then we wouldn't get matched up in Social Skirmish very quickly or would get booted to our own parties and would have to re-form. Noticed some lag too.

Jonah Falcon @ Sep 26th 2007 11:16AM

Haloz broke teh internets!

I guess that shutdown of Live a few weeks ago didn't exactly do the job. :p

potato @ Sep 26th 2007 11:57AM

Live broke for me also last night - I hadn't hooked up the 360 to Live in weeks, and needed the update, but the download servers were all down for about 20 min. No harm done though, I was online in no time :D

The multiplayer is as sweet as ever. :)

Crashman06 @ Sep 26th 2007 11:22AM

Ugh. I wish I was home. Haven't got to play Halo 3 online yet. Worse, I'm leaving for a 360-less week vacation starting tomorrow. Almost doesn't feel like a vacation...

bigmike @ Sep 26th 2007 11:30AM

how do i join a co-op game without going to my friends list in halo 3 and how can other people join my co-op game.

GalacticOkie @ Sep 26th 2007 11:31AM

Nothing compared to the screwed up mess that Sony has with their "free" service. I bought Warhawk (online only game) to play until Halo 3 came out and it was unplayable at all on ranke servers even after a month. I traded it in to pay for part of Halo 3. I am not a fanboy I have both systems but Xbox rules the online multplayer experience.

useedems @ Sep 26th 2007 11:31AM

Scratched discs and network failure. Why am I not jealous?

Golfa @ Sep 26th 2007 11:33AM

I got some lag in a match last night around 10:30 EST

wonder if that was related. I certainly hope that is THE LAST TIME I ever see lag while playing online or I'll be pissed.

renatox @ Sep 26th 2007 11:33AM

yea is all bcuz of all this halo losers and the stupid ass game that SUCKS BALLS FUCK HALO

Emily @ Sep 26th 2007 11:39AM

Your all lucky.

I couldnt even get on line with Halo. I was online for everything else, chats and the like, but nooo, no co-op for this girl.

When I got home I took a look at my friends list and people who moved over to War Crack were on, it was easier to count the people not playing Halo then playing, and I had so many invites to play it broke my heart when i couldnt join ANYONE.

Yikes Crashman, I thought I had it bad, the in-laws are coming for a weekend for a wedding, this is the first time I meet all of his family and Halo just came out! It's not fair, why do they have to get married this weekend? If his Mom wasnt a nurse I'd fake bloody well sick to get out of it.

renatox @ Sep 26th 2007 11:40AM

to all halo LOSERS get a fucking job like everybody else and stop living off mommy and daddy and do something for ur lifes instead of playing that fucking game all day long FUCK HALO

Emily @ Sep 26th 2007 11:43AM

You fucking little loser.

Half (or more) of the people here all work and have their own lives, lucky for me I have a boring cube job to stalk the site, so shut your little mouth and stop ragging on us who like something. Spend your time a little better and go play your little PSP or something.

Jonah Falcon @ Sep 26th 2007 11:44AM

I love the losers who spend their time getting online and calling other people losers for being online. (laugh)

Andy R @ Sep 26th 2007 11:47AM

Have been trying to recover my Gamertag back to my 360 after playing Halo 3 co-op with my buddy last night, but Live tells me that sign-up services are still unavailable. On top of that, my profile on his 360 doesn't work because I got part of the way through the process earlier so it invalidated it on his 360 as well. No Halo 3 for me till this all get's fixed. I am bummed out to say the least.

Jonah Falcon @ Sep 26th 2007 11:56AM

I've had no problems getting my account - just trying to see it on Xbox.com

Josh @ Sep 26th 2007 11:58AM

i miss being a drunk, lazy college kid

and yeah, i noticed last night that logging into live was no problem, and playing h3 online was no problem - but to even try and access anything in the marketplace - it just wasn't working

Tony @ Sep 26th 2007 12:01PM

MS sucks. Warhawk was still playable during that first month, and incredibly fun. I hate MS, I pay for XBL and they can't even prepare for the bandwidth they knew they would need. If they would have spent a little less on marketing and more on server equipment their loyal fanboys wouldn't have been so screwed. The more you pay MS, the more they screw you. That's been my experience.

David W. @ Sep 26th 2007 12:16PM

Tony chill...it boggles my mind to even imagine the bandwith and servers needed to handle Halo 3...have you been to Bungies site? The complexity of the stats is ridiculous. This is THE largest game release in history, no one really knew what to expect.

I personally didn't have any problems, I played online until about 12am central...Well I take that back, I got dropped from my party, but that's not really a big deal, I think the servers handled the load pretty well.

MS offers by far the best online experience, much much better then Sony...and Nintendo's is just a joke, haha.

Tucker @ Sep 26th 2007 12:23PM

I played last night for quite a while, on and off from around 6 p.m. to close to midnight EST... Noticed a tiny bit of lag here and there but no major issues. Maybe it was a coastal thing?

erivera3 @ Sep 26th 2007 12:37PM

Where are the official numbers on how many copies were sold in the first 24 hours and how much money it raked in?

Has to be record breaking!!!!!!

John Fredericks @ Sep 26th 2007 12:39PM

Jealous much?

J @ Sep 26th 2007 12:53PM

Most of my online play has been pretty smooth, but there was one game in particular that had a lot of lag. I would shoot someone from 10 ft away then they would instantly be right in my face and I'd be dead.

I switched my online options from "Quickest" to "Best Connection", or whatever it is, and that's when the trouble really started. I and about 7 other people were stuck in the Multi Team menu waiting for the game to load for quite a while. I met some cool people and had some cool informative conversations, but the game never started.

But, like I said, overall the experience playing online has been great... Why would people be trying to do anything in marketplace anyway? They should be playing teh Haloz!

slackjaw @ Sep 26th 2007 12:58PM

What's a halo?
Did Trent Reznor approve of this?

Spitkicker @ Sep 26th 2007 1:04PM

@renatox
Uhhmmm....I don't know about you..but I work two jobs (at work right now), juggle a music career, live on my own and play LIVE to unwind as do many other posters here and XBOX 360 owners..so fuck off with your dickhead comments. Why are you posting here anyway? Go play warhawk of something and leave us alone.

renatox @ Sep 26th 2007 1:14PM

@ emily i dont like psp lol or any sony products i LOVE my 360 im just pissed that they post something about halo every day halo is not the only game u know

Grant @ Sep 26th 2007 1:39PM

all of live has been kinda laggy and screwy.
Matchmaking has taken at the minimum like 1-2 minutes, which is kinda absurd.
The beta wasn't that slow, usually the 1 minute long waits were on the higher end of the spectrum and usually you could connect in like 30-45 seconds.

Mauricio @ Sep 26th 2007 1:50PM

im with you on that Xeno. it makes you realize its a big fuckin world and how much importance the internet has on our lives.

On launch night(12am) i played for about 5 hrs with these 2 guys from Australia. i didnt think about it until i asked what time it was out there. It was 10pm for them but 4am for me. We all had a thought about it for a sec and chuckled.

MIkesOnline @ Sep 26th 2007 1:58PM

MS Should not have released an update to the dashboard just a few days before Halo 3 came out. I had been out of town and did not get the update before trying to play Halo 3. I could not get the update and it kept prompting me for it. It was really annoying. However, all I had to do was just not get the update and play offline for a little while. All I have played so far is the campaign. I can't wait to play some multi-player.

Berg @ Sep 26th 2007 2:11PM

I am getting the same error message when trying to migrate my account. It worked last night with no problem but when I tried migrating again this morning, it said that no new sign ups are allowed. Since it went halfway through , I can't sign into my account on either xbox. this sucks, any idea what is going on?

Tony @ Sep 26th 2007 6:09PM

Warhawk clearly isn't comparable to Halo 3 in terms of the number of users. That's not even on Gears of War or Halo 2 levels and those always work.

I'm also a different Tony by the way lol.

In any case, this is STILL not working properly. If you have to recover your account or sign up for a new gold one, you're told the Xbox Live Sign up services are unavailable. For two days I've been told this now. I'm pretty annoyed.

Paul @ Sep 26th 2007 9:03PM

thats outrageous

Fezmid @ Sep 26th 2007 11:31PM

Live is still acting goofy tonight. Just played a game of Catan, and it literally took two hours. Between each turn we had to wait roughly 30-45 seconds. Crazy stuff, but the cool thing is that NOBODY QUIT and it was a lot of fun (voice worked fine, the only quirky issue was the lag between turns).

Oh well, they'll straighten it out.