Every now and then I come across a story that highlights just exactly why many people think that as Americans, we’re f’ing crazy. The story I am talking about is the one having to do with the three gamers suing Xbox Live for compensation of their Xbox Live subscription for the downtime that happened during December. The problem I have with the story is problem with guarantying uptime on online services. You really cannot predict what is going to happen to even a small web hosting or networking company during an elevated traffic period, such as December. NO ONE can guarantee 24/7 365 uptime. To think that someone can guarantee 100% uptime is ludicrous. Anyone who tells you they can guarantee 100% uptime on any kind of online service is absolutely out of their mind or they are conning you.

With that said the downtime that everyone experienced during December on Xbox Live did suck. In fact if I remember correctly Live was up and down for a little over two weeks (might be wrong on that). That kind of downtime definitely demands some kind of reimbursement to the users on Xbox Live, specifically the gold subscribers who pay for the service. Reimbursement for downtime of online services are typically rare due to the variables that come into play when trying to guarantee any uptime at all. Microsoft’s contract, which by the way you all agreed to, clearly states that they can not guarantee uptime of their services, and also cannot be held responsible (liability of being sued) for the downtime of their service.

Due to the way the contract is worded there can not be any other verdict than to have the case thrown out. The case is further lead astray by the fact that Microsoft will be giving reimbursement to the users, out of good will and PR, in the form of an Xbox Live arcade game which will most likely end up being one of the 400-800 point games. Who knows what they’ll allow people to choose from. I am not naive enough to think that they will give away anything that people will actually want but nonetheless they are still reimbursing the users.