Xbox Live's Major Nelson : Xbox.com

Xbox LIVE Billing issues (updated: FIXED)

Major Nelson — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:09:00 GMT

Currently, Xbox LIVE members may experience issues related to billing. That means difficulties with account recovery, account management, Marketplace functions and/or making purchases. Users who already have Microsoft Points in their account will be able to redeem them. Until these issues are resolved, you will also be unable to sign in to Xbox.com, which includes posting in the forums and queuing up downloads on the Marketplace. All other areas of LIVE (matchmaking, friends lists, messaging etc.) are not affected.

~~The engineers are actively working to resolve the issues as quickly as possible. Keep an eye on the~~ ~~Xbox LIVE Status page in the support section of Xbox.com~~ ~~which will be updated when conditions change.~~

Thanks for your patience.

Update: The above issues have been fixed.

Xbox Live Maintenance Complete

Major Nelson — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:10:26 GMT

Ok, you can stop finding things to keep you busy…LIVE is back. I am happy to report that the Xbox Live Maintenance is now complete which means that Xbox LIVE is back online, and you can now resume posting in the Xbox forums. Thanks again for your patience during this maintenance.

Reminder: Xbox LIVE Scheduled Maintenance

Major Nelson — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:10:00 GMT

It happens in about 8 hours and will affect Xbox LIVE and Xbox.com Details are in the post I made about it last week.

Xbox LIVE Scheduled Maintenance

Major Nelson — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:09:54 GMT

On Monday April 21st from 0200-1000 PT Xbox Live will be offline for maintenance. As a result, the ‘My Xbox’ section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you won’t be able to post.) The remainder of Xbox.com will be available.

Find out what time the maintenance will begin in your time zone

This is for maintenance, there are no new features on your that will appear on your Xbox 360 console or Xbox.com when the service comes back online. This is server maintenance only

My Xbox Update

Major Nelson — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:40:13 GMT

Early this morning, the team rolled out an update to the My Xbox section of Xbox.com. It’s a redesign that, among other things, places most of the information you’re looking for easily at the top of the page. Plus, much of the section has been re-coded to increase page performance. Let me know what you think and I’ll share it with the team.

New Halo 3 Video

Major Nelson — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:08:40 GMT

Now on Xbox.com…more coming Friday.

Xbox.com e3 Coverage Day 1

Major Nelson — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:17:17 GMT

As you scour the net for all the latest e3 news / coverage /rumors from here in Santa Monica, be sure to check out the complete coverage on Xbox.com. In addition to the stories and videos we're posting, we've also added a new element this year: Virtual Panorama Tours. These things really put you in the center of the action. Be sure to check 'em out as we'll be uploading more over the next couple of days.

Also, here is a backstage shot of Geoff Keighley and I at the G4 broadcast platform.

E3 Bringing it Home 2007

Major Nelson — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:59:23 GMT

Can’t make E3 this year? Don’t worry, in addition to the coverage on Xbox.com, the Xbox Live Marketplace will also be filled with E3 goodness again this year.

'Xbox Dad of the Year' Contest

Major Nelson — Tue, 29 May 2007 23:39:16 GMT

I talked about the ‘Xbox Dad of the Year’ contest (or rather TriXie did) on the show this week, but the page to enter is now up. For those are going to enter to win the great prizes…good luck!

GTA IV Trailer (HD)

Major Nelson — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:59:00 GMT

Just a reminder that Xbox.com will have a never-before-seen HD trailer of ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ this afternoon. It should appear on this page once the timer reaches zero.

Edit: Added hyphens

Hey...where is the gamer picture from?

Major Nelson — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:53:06 GMT

Have you ever been asked that question, only to be stumped? With hundreds of gamer pictures on the Xbox Live Marketplace, I was constantly running into this problem when I get messages from the community. Fortunately, I was able to convince the Xbox.com developers to try and help. Now, when you are looking at someone’s gamer pic on Xbox.com (or in the Xbox forums) you can hover your mouse pointer over the picture and find out where it came from. While it won’t tell you exactly which picture pack it is from, it will tell you what title the picture is associated with. So at the very least, it will get you pointed in the right direction. Thanks to the big brains on our wonderful dev team for sneaking this in for me. One more thing: it may not work with every browser, but it should.

I uploaded a screencap to Flickr to show you the alt tag action, or you can just check it on your own gamercard.

Comments are temporarily off

Major Nelson — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:52:46 GMT

I had to shut comments off since we had WAAAY to comment traffic, and over 80% of it was comment spam. I will turn them back on when the dark rain cloud has passed.

As far as Xbox Live is concerned, we’re almost ready to open ‘er back up for business. ~~It should be less then an hour before we’re back~~. e just came in and told me less then 30 minutes before we let everyone back on.

I am providing micro-updates on Twitter, at least until I break that too :)

Not yet...

Major Nelson — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 22:46:11 GMT

They’re still working on it. Lot’s of people running up and down the halls from office to office working on the issue. No ETA, but it should not be too much longer.

I am doing mini-updates on Twitter, since my site is either under attack from Digg or /. ;)

Xbox Live Security Update

Major Nelson — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 23:57:22 GMT

Earlier this week when I first heard about the "Xbox Live network hacked" story, I checked with the people on our end, and then posted about it. As originally posted, Xbox Live has not been hacked. That is still true. A security researcher, Kevin Finisterre, discovered not a hack, but the fact that some accounts may have been compromised as a result of 'social engineering', also known as ‘pre-texting’, through our support center. Kevin gave me a call directly and once I realized what he was talking about (he sent me some painful-to-listen-to audio files) I confirmed that the team is fully aware of this issue. They are examining the policies, and have already begun re-training the support staff and partners to help make sure we reduce this type of social engineering attack.

There's no other way to say it; this situation shouldn't have happened. Our customers deserve better.

The Xbox team takes what happened and the resolution of it very seriously. I also wanted to let you know that we've posted a page on Xbox.com 'Troubleshooting Access to your Xbox Live Account' that can help you if you have questions. Finally, I chatted with Kevin earlier today and thanked him for bringing this issue to our attention. I also let him know that we have a much better understanding of this issue and that we are reviewing the processes in place to help prevent this in the future.

Xbox Live Security

Major Nelson — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:25:00 GMT

Despite some recent reports and speculation, I want to reassure all of our 6 million Xbox Live members that we have looked into the situation and found no evidence of any compromise of the security of the Xbox Live Network or Bungie.net. There have been a few isolated incidents where malicious users have been attempting to draw personal information from unsuspecting users and use it to gain access to their LIVE account. This is a good time to remind our members that they should never give out any of their personal information. Additionally it may be a good idea to download this free PDF file from Microsoft.com ' Help Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft’ that gives you some excellent information and tips on how to protect yourself.

Hope that clears things up.

Major/Larry

I am locking comments on this post, since I have posted an update.

Playing Xbox Live over Google WiFi

Major Nelson — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 22:49:00 GMT

Over the weekend, I participated in little experiment: The first ever Xbox Live death-match from a moving vehicle. Let me explain. With the help of Jake Ludington, Brandon Wirtz over at XYHD.TV wanted to take his Xbox Live playin’ on the road. So they loaded up Brandon’s ‘07 Jeep Wrangler with a 23” Samsung LCD and hooked it up to an Xbox 360. They took a laptop and connected it to the free Google WiFi service (only available in Mountain View, California) and using Internet Connection Sharing, connected the Xbox to play over Xbox Live. You can see the full video here. I was actually in Seattle at home as the guy ‘at the other end’ playing in the video, but it was a fun experiment anyway. And let me be perfectly clear: This is not a supported method to use your Xbox 360 or connect to Xbox Live, but kudos to you if you can make it work.

Jake has more details and pictures over on his blog.