Lawsuit prevents MS from talking about Live's status
by Dustin Burg 
{ Jan 14th 2008 at 11:15AM }
Major Nelson says that he and Microsoft haven't talked about or updated Live users about the Xbox Live service lately, because they are legally gagged. Currently, there's an Xbox Live outage lawsuit taking place in Texas (concerning the Live down time last December) and because of that, Major has to be shush about all things concerning the status of the Xbox Live service. No more blog updates, Twitter updates or comments. We'll be pretty much in the dark if anything should go wrong with Live until the Texas lawsuit is over. Humf to that.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
xenocidic @ Jan 14th 2008 11:24AM
America - the land of the lawsuit
pkilla @ Jan 14th 2008 12:20PM
Well I have to admit that I haven't had many issues during whole time. I did notice a slow down of messages being sent but other than that everything was fine.
The lawsuit doesn't make any sense at all. They don't realize that if they lose the will pay more for what they lost in xbox live service fees.
- Layer fees
- Court Fees
- Missed work cost.
- Car Gas. lol
Intentless @ Jan 14th 2008 11:24AM
THROW THE CASE OUT ALREADY!! Cripes...
TORO @ Jan 14th 2008 11:25AM
M$ can't get a break lol...
TORO @ Jan 14th 2008 1:29PM
what does it mean when I comment is shaded gray?
xenocidic @ Jan 14th 2008 2:06PM
it means people voted you down
TORO @ Jan 14th 2008 2:38PM
Cool!
thx Xeno
xenocidic @ Jan 14th 2008 4:08PM
whats funny is that my explanation to you, about being voted down, was voted up.
Evan @ Jan 14th 2008 11:26AM
Fantastic, because those idiots are suing for five bucks a piece we cannot see the status of Live.
If we are really sue happy we should so those idiots!
Evan @ Jan 14th 2008 11:26AM
ehem... sue those idiots.
JakubK666 @ Jan 14th 2008 1:58PM
Yeah there should be a lawsuit category called "Frivolous Lawsuits/Extreme Cases of Cretinism."
dunnypop @ Jan 14th 2008 11:27AM
still having issues with live.
kinda lame when you actually want to play with soem friends.
hopefully they will give gold members a few free weeks of live along with the xbla game.
mattclarkie @ Jan 14th 2008 1:56PM
I expect that the lawsuit will prevent the game being released for free, atleast until after the suit is settled.
So thank you very much Feedy Guckers who are suing MS.
E J Wizard @ Jan 14th 2008 12:35PM
We seriously need tort reform in this country. The judge should have thrown this out of court while laughing.
MS has already appologized and offered a free game. If it is a $5 game, that's one month of service. If it is a better game, then that's 2 months. Quite fair.
Will @ Jan 14th 2008 11:31AM
Bags!
Matt @ Jan 14th 2008 11:35AM
COD4 seemed to be working great all weekend. Also, it seems Live, in general, with regards to game invites, etc, is working nicely.
mattclarkie @ Jan 14th 2008 1:58PM
I was playing R6V, and there were alot of Red Pings, and generally shody connections even in rooms with just Green pings.
I know that R6V can sometimes bug out, but it was the worst I have seen it, so it maybe Live was acting Wonky.
erivera3 @ Jan 14th 2008 2:16PM
COD4 is not working good, and never has worked great without a few hitches. I was a level 49 in the 4th prestige with a kill/death ratio of 2.29, and the next time I logged on I was down to a level 33 in the 4th prestige with a kill/death ratio of 2.21. It's as if the COD4 servers forgot I had played all over my christmas break; did anyone else have or hear of a similar problem?
COD4 servers suck so much, despite the game being addictive and some of the most fun I've ever had.
R3CKL3SS @ Jan 14th 2008 11:37AM
I can't believe we are taking video games so far as to sue M$ damn lawyers. I know we are all pissed but come on.
ill trooper @ Jan 14th 2008 2:48PM
It's not just 'video games,' it's a multimillion dollar industry and Microsoft generates a lot of money with LIVE. They went as far as to say themselves that the 360 had the largest year in videogame history in 2007.
Huge industry here, not "LOL, it's just gamez..." That's what people like Major Nelson want you to feel, as you pay for a $349 console, a $19.99 plug-n-charge pack, $50 for one year of LIVE, $60 for Halo3, and rent movies and TV shows from LIVE. It's an expensive hobby, and even if you don't take it seriously to care, Microsoft is counting every penny and keeping track of all games you opt to play, making notes of all in-game advertising you see, the times you play and how much you play, and of course, reporting it back to advertising partners and pitching ad space on the dashboard, and in games like Splinter Cell and Rainbow 6.
As paying customers, they owe it to us to provide the service they offer and promised when they charged us.
If the status is being withheld, it's because there is legal action pending, and that is because LIVE has not been performing like Microsoft said it would if you payed for it.
Intentless @ Jan 14th 2008 11:44AM
They were already going to give everyone a free game which is worth a month's service... That was sufficient I think...
DemonGSides @ Jan 14th 2008 12:08PM
Once again, it depends on the game.
pandlcg @ Jan 14th 2008 12:38PM
I wonder if this lawsuit will also delay the free game they were going to give us.
NATO_Duke @ Jan 14th 2008 1:33PM
You bet it will. Now they will have to wait and see if they are ordered to give some benefit to the class - if the suit isn't thrown out. Even if it is thrown out, these people have screwed the whole Live user base, as MS is on the defensive and will not be willing to give something on top of the possible losses they may have given more angry users placing themselves ahead of the community.
What I am getting at is that this lawsuit has screwed us all. The truth is that the only person benefiting from it is the lawyers filing the suit - don't get me wrong, I am a lawyer and like a good paycheck too, but this suit only serves to hurt the class they are attempting to represent.
Knight Marquise @ Jan 14th 2008 1:52PM
NATO-Duke,
This is off topic, however, I never realized you were an attorney. Being one, what are your feelings on tort reform?
brad77 @ Jan 15th 2008 2:19AM
I don't know about NATO, but I find it shallow and pedantic.
bluntman @ Jan 14th 2008 11:48AM
Just goes to show Texans suck one ruined out country and now a handful of them are ruining xbox live.
Knight Marquise @ Jan 14th 2008 11:48AM
To really put it into perspective, consider this:
Five Turd Stains and their parasite are suing MS over, let's say 3 weeks of live not functioning as we're accustomed to. That comes out to $2.88 cents owed per customer for those 3 weeks, or $14.40 for the five. The parasites are sueing for 5 Million.
Now personally, I only experienced a week of intermittent wonkiness, and life actually went on for me. Go figure.
Tort Reform. We need it. Now.
L4MB @ Jan 16th 2008 10:12AM
what is tort reform? is that like the sweet sweet combination of a pie and a cake my mom used to make? if so, why is it such a big deal, i liked tort the way it was. if not, does it have something to do with this lawsuit?
Alphonse Romano @ Jan 14th 2008 11:55AM
This is BS!!! I think to 2 podcasts ago on Major Nelson's podcast, e had confirmed that all the problems with XBL had been fixed. This just goes to show that MS should definitely make Xbox Live Free to the public, and I mean GOLD MEMBERSHIPS FREE!!! If this is the crap I'm paying $50 a year for, not including MS points!!!, then I should just look into a PS3, at least their service is free!
x silence x @ Jan 14th 2008 11:58AM
Since MS can't say the status I will...
XBox LIVE Status: Fucked!
- Can't load guide
- Friends list takes forever to load
- Gamertiles and Gamerscore shows up blank
- Takes for ever for messages to be sent
mattclarkie @ Jan 14th 2008 2:03PM
Yeah for the last few weeks peoples GS have been displaying as --G, and games they are playing currently --G, they should atleast say 0G.
nking.ld @ Jan 14th 2008 1:27PM
I believe they are being sued because, what I have been told is that in Lives legal document, Live is supposed to only have down time of 2-3 days. In this case it was broken/down for over 2 weeks before the lawsuits started. Then it was still finicky for over a month.
stukorn @ Jan 14th 2008 12:04PM
i'm sorry, but what asshole('s) are so affected by the brief downtime of xbox live they need to sue them. It's not like xbox live is keeping thier terminally ill loved one alive, and any downtime will cause certain detah!
Maybe slipknot were right, people = shit! (gay, but true)
maybe these people could have learn't a new skill, read a book, go for a walk, while live was down.
madsci @ Jan 14th 2008 12:24PM
I can understand them suing on the grounds that they paid for a service which took a shit for the past month and continues to blow. I don't think they should offer just a free game, I think they should extend contracts for as long as the shittyness lasts. I hate to say it, but I don't have these problems with my PS3 playing Warhawk or Unreal Tourney. Granted there are less users, but they also aren't asking their user base to pay for the service and it's upgrades.
Neon Jebus @ Jan 14th 2008 12:29PM
So this group of guys tried to sue over the outage. It's a shame because we all know they have no shot of winning that one.
Now if they would have went with the DRM issues, they would have had a pretty good case. I think the DRM issue is going to end up getting MS in a bit of trouble before too much longer.
You keep locking up content someone paid cash for and you're going to end up getting sued.
grp110nyr @ Jan 14th 2008 12:35PM
Live has been on and off for me. I was able to download some arcade demos on Friday and then I lost my connection. I reconnected on Sunday and I was thrilled to be able to connect and play COD4. COD4 had an occassional hiccup but life was good yesterday. I still notice an extended load time when I sign in and try to connect. Not as bad as it was before but lengthy enough to be noticed. To my suprise I had two demo's I was trying to download and forgot about finish up (one was 80 Mb and another was a picture pack). Now I must go and file a class action lawsuit against my local news station for giving me an incorrect weather forcast. Good Day! MS just fix the problem quickly so everyone can connect!
Flash2000 @ Jan 14th 2008 12:36PM
Between XBL service acting weird without any updates being given to us as to why, all the great games for the xbox have been released and played now, and Microsoft standing firmly (and perhaps stupidly) behind HD-DVD...
The Ps3 is looking better and better every time I pass one at Best Buy.
REM @ Jan 14th 2008 1:04PM
Come on you morons, this lawsuit will force Microsoft to put some more $$$ into Live. I mean come on, $200 + million per year from us, and that's just a guesstimate. We shouldn't have to worry about Live going down for a single day. When I'm done working on my remote control airplane, read my book and took my walk I EXPECTED LIVE TO WORK! When you are busy and you have only little windows of time to play, it should be working and flawless but noooo. And just to add on COD4 is still crashing servers left and right and dropping players in our party 4 out of 5 times. Now is that the game or Live? I don't really give a shit, they need to figure that crap out and FIX IT ALREADY! And what more status do you freaking need...if it's not working it's BROKE! It will be working when they FIX it. The only people who can't figure this out are the kids. Oh, my bad, the majority of you on live are kids. So, while you're at it Microsoft, give us our own adult room with that $200 million a year so we don't have to listen to you little babies crying and telling your mommy you want a glass of Milk!
Don't mess with Texas!
Intentless @ Jan 14th 2008 1:08PM
And your the class of fellow adults that I try to avoid.
Knight Marquise @ Jan 14th 2008 1:36PM
Funny....I put my "adult" glasses on and read your post. It read:
"wa wa wa wa wa, someone give me some cheese for my whine"
JakubK666 @ Jan 14th 2008 2:05PM
He has a point. MS might provide better service just for the sake of getting rid of retards who think they can sue them.While it doesn't waste much money, it wastes time and MS would rather avoid that.
Chris @ Jan 14th 2008 12:53PM
I personally haven't noticed any XBL problems lately. Sure, christmas day and boxing day but other then that it's been fine. Microsoft admitted the problem and we're willing to compensate us for it, which I think is fair enough, no need to sue.
xboxlivesucks @ Jan 14th 2008 1:04PM
its been 4 weeks and i still cant get on live. the problem is still there and im glad they are getting sued
Oorang @ Jan 14th 2008 1:21PM
Its about time a giant like Microsoft fixed these problems...Xbox Live, being a paid for subscription service, shouldnt suffer downtime at all save for rountine maintenance.
If MS cant cope then they should make Live free - then users dont have the right to complain if the service blows chunks...
Would any of you guys go with more adverts (like pop ups etc) on live in exchange for a free service?
E-Rock @ Jan 14th 2008 1:07PM
Good luck with that. I hear the PS3 is doing so well they're giving them away free with Sony TVs.
KineticOnline @ Jan 14th 2008 1:43PM
What about the rest of the world? Can they not talk about the service there? Or does US law now mean international law?
Mr. Stabby Mouse feat. Hat @ Jan 14th 2008 2:09PM
The part that sucks for me is when live is down I can't play the fully unlocked versions of my XBL arcade games; They're all listed as "trial" games until live eventually connects...
Vader582 @ Jan 14th 2008 2:12PM
I really can't believe some of you idiots. The idiots I'm talking about are the ones that say:
1."My XBL is working. Must not be anything wrong."
-Update! There is something wrong. You're a jackass!
2."You're a bunch of whining babies for complaining."
-Sorry that we want something we pay for to work on our terms. We're such fools! :rollseyes:
Do you think MS is going to give you a cookie for defending them on a forum?! I certainly hope none of the sickafants get the RRoD or have an XBL outage...Karma is a bitch...
Knight Marquise @ Jan 14th 2008 3:08PM
"karma is such a bitch"...
Yes, it is. I wonder why Live has been working flawlessly for me for the last two weeks, however you're still having problems?
Karma?