It has been a difficult time trying to use XBL over the festive period but hoping it gets resolved shortly.

Early evening seems fine (UK based) but as soon as the US users come online the whole things freezes and becomes almost unusable. I have been unable to download content or play online games during the problems they have had.

Loving the logic. All the network traffic caused by the game patches having to be downloaded lagged the service out, so MS say "sorry, have a free game".

Very nice of them, however, you have to *download* the game. I wonder how much of their catalogue they'll give away to say sorry for the lack of network availability before they realise their mistake...

that the latest update introduced a system for delivering info to teh customers as news bulletins. It would have been appreciated if one had been sent saying there were connectivity issues. I am unlucky enough to have been hit by virgin media's problems at the same time and assumed my inability to connect was related to that. I would have realised my cable issues were fixed a lot sooner than i did, if i'd know the live service wasn't working properly and actually tested it using a pc

I had no issues at all, bar some slightly long sign in times (10 seconds or so)

Playstation Online is worse than that all the time its awful. More MS bashing from the media I guess

Then I retried, and it all worked again. Seemed fine to me.

Not that I'm turning a free game down, unless it's one I've already paid good money for like with Carcassonne.

On the 31st of December it was almost impossible to get into any public online games on Call of Duty - private hosted games where fine but you can not level up in those.

Last night was also a complete nightmare.

Considering that this is a subscription service it is only right that one should get a refund. - PSN is not a subscription service and I guess here the rule of "You get what you pay for" has its exception here as I have experienced very little problems on PSN.

If Nintendo had produced more than a trickle of Wii systems then everything would have been fine. All these new users are kids that got a 360 for Christmas because the Wii was sold out everywhere. I can't wait until their 30 day trials run out and their parents are too cheap to subscribe.

The gift I really want from Microsoft is a way to filter games based on the age of the player.

Over the crimbo period live has been awful. But this glitch aside, it still runs rings around PSN.

Would rather pay £4 per month for a service like xbox live, than pay nothing for a service like PSN

Before anyone accuses me of fanboyism, I own both the PS3 and 360 and they're both great consoles. But 99% of people that do own both will say Live is much much better.

Having used to own a 360 and currently having a PS3 - I can safely say the 360 was a hell of a lot more stable than the PSN. If the 360 ever became as quiet as the PS3 I might just buy another one....

I can't help but wonder how many posters on this play MMOs...:)

There's a long standing belief with MMO publishers that just because you pay a monthly sub, you aren't entitled to any re-imbersment; it's all in the EULA.

I'd be impressed by Microsoft's generosity, but I'm more impressed by their business acumen; look after your customers. Shame they don't apply it everywhere mind (xbox returns fiasco?).

and it's still taking me four or five attempts to send one sodding message across the network.

C'mon MS, sort your stuff out.