Shaky start for Xbox 360 movie downloads

Posted on November 28, 2007
Filed Under News, Off topic

I just read this and while it’s not really movie news it’s sort of related and it’s always fun when giants like Microsoft haven’t really done their homework…

Variety.com writes that on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Microsoft launched its service offering downloads of movies and TV shows for the Xbox 360 through its Xbox Live Internet service. It wasn’t long, however, before message boards were lighting up with complaints of missing films, ultra-slow download speeds and multiple charges for one purchase.

Tech giant responded quickly with posts on its public message boards on Thanksgiving Day letting users know it was aware of and working on the problems. Now Microsoft plans to offer refunds or “make-goods” for those who encountered problems.

Xbox Live director of programming Larry Hryb blamed the problems on “the extremely high number of downloads from the Video Marketplace service over the past 24 hours.”

Obviously Microsoft had a tough time estimating how much demand there would be since movie downloads have never been available through a videogame console before. But it remains to be seen how much of the interest was day one curiosity…

Even though the launch wasn’t that smooth I salute Microsoft for launching its service offering downloads of movies and TV shows for the Xbox 360. Excellent move.

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