Interesting notes from MS Blogger Breakfast

[Queasy]

Kotaku

What's up with the Xbox 360 hardware shortages?

Schappert: This was news to me too. When we realize that we might have shortages around Christmas and we push that start button the first product doesn't show up till March. It's a complex system.

Larry Hryb implied that the Live outages were caused by the increase in users, what happened?

Schappert: Larry's podcast was spot on, the take away is right before Christmas we saw users grow exponentially and our servers were having trouble meeting that demand. We had people working well over the holidays. We are in good shape now. The hours before the Super Bowl we had 1 million concurrent users after the Super Bowl started it went down. It was the game before the game.

<insert you should already have had the capacity to handle that many users built-in to the system comment>

What about restoring DRM right for content downloads for repaired or replaced machines?

That's something we are still working through, that's something very top of mind. We are working on that yes.

In the interim what we are doing is giving points to those folks who bought those games and can't download them, so they can redownload those titles. We realize it is unacceptable.

Spring 08 Update please! In the meantime, you should tell your CSRs this since many people have reported being told that giving out points is not allowed.

The rest is mostly about XNA games and encouraging community development.

edit: Joystiq has good round-up of the XNA stuff:

* Only members of XNA Creators Club will be able to upload games to the service. They'll also make up the review squad for games that will vet them for IP infringement, adult content, etc.
* Games will not be rated by any body like the ESRB, but those groups have been asked for their opinion on Microsoft's rating system.
* Microsoft's not talking about how the system will be monetized (or even if it will) while they're in this beta phase.
* Games will be on the Marketplace blade, but you'll also be able to search a web page for games that you'd like to play. Creators will be able to post comments about their games as well as downloadable videos.
* At the moment, the file size limit of games is 150 MB, but Microsoft is open to increasing that if need be.
* Both silver and gold members of Xbox Live will be able download XNA games.
* Microsoft isn't particularly worried about XNA cannibalizing XBLA sales. As Xbox Live VP John Schappert said, "I think at the end of the day, empowering consumers to create their own games is better overall. I think it will be a nice compliment.
* At the moment, you won't be able to see what your friends are playing, but that's something Microsoft would like to fix.
* There won't be any Achievements on XNA.
* Creators will be able to choose which regions they want their work in.
* Creators will retain the rights to their work.

 

[Aikouka]

Sounds like in the haste to get their system out fast, they may've overlooked some things and are now trying to make up for it or just post-release oversight (such as the influx of users).

The only annoyance I have with my 360 is when I'm turning it on and trying to access the dashboard and it just sits there with the loading content graphic going for almost half a minute 🙁. I just want to download a new DLC or a new Live Arcade game!

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
The only annoyance I have with my 360 is when I'm turning it on and trying to access the dashboard and it just sits there with the loading content graphic going for almost half a minute 🙁. I just want to download a new DLC or a new Live Arcade game!

Yeah, that is a "feature" that was introduced in the Fall Update. I'm not sure what they did to cause such a delay to your gamertag logging into Live. Hopefully, they'll fix it in the Spring Update.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: Queasy
Yeah, that is a "feature" that was introduced in the Fall Update. I'm not sure what they did to cause such a delay to your gamertag logging into Live. Hopefully, they'll fix it in the Spring Update.

Well, it wouldn't be as bad, but it's also on every page! If I try to go play an arcade game or view some media, I'm stuck with that loading thing there, but there really shouldn't be when it's all local content =\.

 

[Thraxen]

What about restoring DRM right for content downloads for repaired or replaced machines?

That's something we are still working through, that's something very top of mind. We are working on that yes.

In the interim what we are doing is giving points to those folks who bought those games and can't download them, so they can redownload those titles. We realize it is unacceptable.

Oh yeah.... I've heard about that alright... too bad I wasn't offered any points when I called Live support to complain about this very issue :|