Xbox Live has gone down across all games as of 7:00pm Central Time 12/27/06. So far there is no explanation for the crash.
Players are reporting that they cannot get into online games, and some are even stating that single player games are not functioning. However, you can still download from Marketplace, send messages and take part in private chat.
After a cursory troll of the Xbox Live forums, there seems to be no explanation at this time, although they do claim to be working on it.
Current Xbox Live Statement.
Update 1: It seems as though games that rely heavily on Xbox Live for single player (Gears of War) can still be played if you make sure to either unplug your network cable or completely sign out of Xbox Live. Multiplayer is still down as of 9:15pm Central Standard Time.
Update 2: We are getting word that a Telecommunications across Asia have been severely disrupted because of damage to undersea cables caused by Tuesday's earthquake near Taiwan. Many are speculating that this could be a part of the Xbox Lives downtime although there is nothing to confirm the speculation. In a quote from BBC News we learned that, "China's biggest telecoms provider, China Telecommunications Group, said that communications cables to the US and to Europe had been damaged." Seeing as how this happened on Tuesday we are doubtful that it has directly affected Xbox Live's service. Then again, you never know.
Link To BBC Article
Update 3: After 30 minutes of waiting on hold with customer service, we were told that the outage would continue until tomorrow morning. At first the operator tried to tell us that the outage was due to a Xbox Live update. Obviously an update would be something that is announced and not sprung on 4 million users at the drop of a hat. Let's hope we can get some real answers soon.
Final Update: As of 1:07A.M. Xbox Live is now back online with all functions. There still has been no explanation from Microsoft as to why this crash occurred. Maybe tomorrow.
Players are reporting that they cannot get into online games, and some are even stating that single player games are not functioning. However, you can still download from Marketplace, send messages and take part in private chat.
After a cursory troll of the Xbox Live forums, there seems to be no explanation at this time, although they do claim to be working on it.
Current Xbox Live Statement.
Update 1: It seems as though games that rely heavily on Xbox Live for single player (Gears of War) can still be played if you make sure to either unplug your network cable or completely sign out of Xbox Live. Multiplayer is still down as of 9:15pm Central Standard Time.
Update 2: We are getting word that a Telecommunications across Asia have been severely disrupted because of damage to undersea cables caused by Tuesday's earthquake near Taiwan. Many are speculating that this could be a part of the Xbox Lives downtime although there is nothing to confirm the speculation. In a quote from BBC News we learned that, "China's biggest telecoms provider, China Telecommunications Group, said that communications cables to the US and to Europe had been damaged." Seeing as how this happened on Tuesday we are doubtful that it has directly affected Xbox Live's service. Then again, you never know.
Link To BBC Article
Update 3: After 30 minutes of waiting on hold with customer service, we were told that the outage would continue until tomorrow morning. At first the operator tried to tell us that the outage was due to a Xbox Live update. Obviously an update would be something that is announced and not sprung on 4 million users at the drop of a hat. Let's hope we can get some real answers soon.
Final Update: As of 1:07A.M. Xbox Live is now back online with all functions. There still has been no explanation from Microsoft as to why this crash occurred. Maybe tomorrow.