Xbox Live Video Marketplace downloads stalled by glitches
The two biggest questions since Microsoft announced its Xbox Live Video Marketplace have been: 1. does anyone still has enough space on their Xbox 360's 20GB hard drive for movie downloads in high definition? and 2. does anyone -- even the guys at Redmond -- have enough bandwidth to feed the HDTVs of millions of Xbox Live subscribers? Since launching two days ago those questions have been answered with a yes and resounding no, respectively. Users have complained of slow downloads that time out, receiving different files than the ones they requested and being charged twice when trying to complete timed-out rental downloads. Major Nelson has chimed in on the issue, letting us know that the company is aware of the problem and will refund Microsoft Points to all those who call 1-800-4MYXBOX for assistance. Good luck with that, though, as at least one person was told there aren't any managers available to refund customers until after the holiday weekend. So while network engineers and management sleep off yesterday's turkey and camp out for cheap plasmas, you may want to hold off trying to download Clash of the Titans in 720p 'till things get straightened out.[Thanks, WiFiSpy]
Read - My Xbox 360 video rental nightmare
Read - Video Marketplace Status
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mcloki @ Nov 24th 2006 3:22PM
A beautiful Apple like experience for all. How big is the float of unused Microsoft points in dollar terms? 1o million. 30 million. Do you get interest on those points?
I hope for Sony's sake that they role out in Japan fix the bugs and then come to NA.
Ryan J. @ Nov 24th 2006 5:28PM
I just called Xbox support; I was told that NO refunds of any kind are being offered or given at any time.
JBDragon @ Nov 25th 2006 5:36AM
I got changed 3 times for things that were suppose to be FREE and a error message popped up telling me to call MS during those 3 times with a error code. I should have written them down at the time. They were trailer type things. Not to mention the couple of paid downloads were something not even right and I had to delete it and Re download once again.
Jon @ Nov 25th 2006 10:28AM
I've notice that things are improving already. For the first 2 days of the service going live...the video previews simply did not work for me. They appeared to be loading...but would never actually begin to play. Now those preview videos work and load fairly quickly...much like watching a srtreaming movie trailer on the net. It's a shame ABC is in cahoots with Apple. I doubt we'll see Lost episodes on the shop anytime soon.
I'm hoping that this service is popular and successfull so more content will be released soon.
JW @ Nov 26th 2006 1:08AM
The last few sentences of this article are untrue. I was charged for a 3 different downloads, however; upon calling 800myxbox, i was refunded the points with no questions asked. I'm of the mentality that with anything new, there are glitches and setbacks. As long as they are fixed in a timely manner and the customer support is there, there is no reason to become irritated and mindlessly frustrated. Take it as it comes because we're in the midst of a technological revolution and there is bound to be several bumps along the way.
Larry @ Nov 26th 2006 9:52AM
Major Nelson has been updating his blog about the problems.
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2006/11/23/video-marketplace-status.aspx
DocRoland @ Nov 26th 2006 10:32PM
I used the Xbox Live Video Marketplace for the first time tonight, and I was nothing but impressed. My only gripe was that my movie was only available in 480p and not 720p. It downloaded very quickly, quicker than game demo downloads for sure and the quality was great. The movie I downloaded was also being offered on PPV by my local cable provider, but I imagine it's not in 480p, and the price was the same.
I'll be downloading more movies in the future and telling my friends on Live about it.