This morning, I received a press release from Microsoft about Xbox 360 and Xbox Live activity for the end of 2009. Looking for bits to put in the X-Play news ticker, I came across this quote:"During this time, Xbox LIVE saw a record peak of more than 2.2 million people using the service at the same time – up 47% over the same period last year."47% up? That's a pretty hefty number. The time period in question ranges from 12/14/09 to 1/03/10. Roughly, you average school holiday break. Some may attribute this jump in activity to be due to the rebounding economy.
However, this number set off tiny alarms in Teggy's head. Ping! Ping! Ping! Did Microsoft think we'd all forget what happened last year?
Some of you may recall that during the same time period in 2008, Xbox Live was so overwhelmed with new members that many gamers experienced outages for upward of a full week. People bitched and threatened to sue. Then Microsoft offered a free XBLA download to disgruntled clients. The service was never completely offline. Had it been, the increase in activity would have been even higher in 2009.
Don't let this statistic fool you. Microsoft wants it to look like it's huge success when actually last year's pitfall merely left a wider gap for improvement. This happens with retailers all the time. If they're closed on a "Monday" national holiday one year, the next year when the date of that Monday is shifted, they will see a massive sales increase over the same "date" which makes the stores look good.
I'd brand it, but I've yet to find an animated GIF of the Attack of the Show "Shenanigans" graphic.
