Rocky Start For XBL

On the fifth anniversary of the launch of the original Xbox, Microsoft unveiled their new “on-demand” video marketplace on Xbox Live.

The launch was followed by unanticipated high useage by Xbox Live users, causing a headache of server crashes, lag, and points deducted from accounts without recieving downloads.

Major Nelson had this posted on his website about the marketplace problems:

I just hung up on a conference call on this issue, and I wanted to post an update. As you know, we have been experiencing technical difficulties associated with the extremely high number of downloads from the Video Marketplace service over the past 24 hours. We understand these technical issues have resulted in a very unpleasant experience for our members, including extremely slow downloads or not receiving the content they purchased. We’ve made progress over the past 24–hours, and the team is dedicated to fixing the issues and continues to work as fast as they can around the clock to get the service running as seamlessly as you have come to expect. We strongly encourage all folks who have experienced an error message or did not receive a download they purchased to call customer support at 1-800-4MYXBOX. I also want to mention that if you see the ‘Points have been deducted from your account…’ message when you are trying to download free content, we are NOT deducting points. Thanks for your patience, and please know that the team is prepared to make things right for those affected, including refunding Microsoft Points where appropriate and as quickly as possible.

If you are having problems or have questions, you may want to head over to the Video Markeplace forum on Xbox.com. Members of the Video Marketplace team are over there answering questions and providing status updates on issues.

Edit: If you have any issues with downloads not completing, or you download a piece of content that is labeled incorrectly, contact support and you’ll be issued a refund.”

So far Microsoft hasn’t been sticklers about refunds and it appears the vast majority of users have been given refunds.

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