The lawsuit filed by the three Texans is the reason that we haven’t had any updates from Microsoft over the Xbox Live issues according to Major Nelson’s latest podcast. This is definitely disappointing because we are all so desperate to play on Live without lag issues and other problems. Could that really be the case or is Microsoft just trying to find a scapegoat because they aren’t putting a big enough priority on resolving the problem?

If there is a bright to all of these issues, it’s that I’m blaming all of the times I lose on Halo 3 to Live issues…

Link: Show #263 The One After CES

According to gamerblog Xbox Evolved, Microsoft, Rare, Activision (the current holder of the James Bond game license), and MGM/Sony Pictures (who have the rights to the James Bond films) have worked out a deal that will allow Goldeneye to be ported to the 360. But that’s not all!

The title will have updated graphics and full multiplayer capabilities, and should be released “later this year”. Also slated for release are Perfect Dark and Banjo-Kazooie.

Remember, everyone… this is still a rumor (and not one that any of the major players involved have commented on, at that)… so don’t get your hopes up quite yet.

Link: Rareware Is Revisiting 007 [Via Kotaku]

Three Texans filed a lawsuit this afternoon against Microsoft over the issues plaguing Xbox Live during the past couple weeks. They allege that the outages constitute a breach of contract on the part of Microsoft. Microsoft has just learned of the lawsuit today and is not yet commenting on the situation. Hit the link for the article and a link to the PDF of the complaint.

Link: Xbox Live holiday outages prompts class action lawsuit [Via Kotaku]

Looks like we will be getting a free XBLA Game as compensation for the issues experienced recently on Xbox Live. There aren’t many details at this time, but we should expect to hear something more soon.

Update: I should have posted the letter in the first place, but I was in a hurry. Here it is:

Dear Xbox LIVE Members:

During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records. This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service.

As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break. While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance. I would like to take this moment to thank you each and every one of you for your patience and understanding as our team has worked around the clock to return the service to a stable state.

At the same time we would like to offer a token of our appreciation to all of you in celebration of record success for the service. And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge. In the coming weeks we will be sharing the specific details of this offer with you.

Thank you again for helping make Xbox LIVE everything that it is today!

Sincerely,

Marc Whitten
General Manager, Xbox LIVE

Link: Get a Free Xbox Live Game

Reports earlier this morning stated that Xbox Live’s issues seemed to be resolved. A quick check of the Xbox.com Support page showed that Xbox Live was up and running with no disclaimers, which was a first in several days. Now, they’ve changed the message back saying that you might experience intermittent issues with signing in, matchmaking, etc. I guess it was fun while it lasted. Check out the Twitter widget on the left side of Major Nelson’s homepage for pretty frequent updates regarding the outages.

On a related note, there have been rumors that Microsoft will be offering compensation to it’s Gold subscribers for the downtime experienced the past week+. I think that would be fair, considering we are paying for the service, but it is yet still a rumor.

I don’t know about you guys, but I am currently experiencing symptoms similar to the ones I had Saturday. I am able to sign into Xbox Live, sometimes after a couple attempts. When loading a game, however, I usually get signed out of Live for some reason. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same thing.