Xbox Living

Last year, Xbox Live players were disheartened over the holidays when Xbox Live experienced a barrage of network troubles.  2007′s holiday season saw a slew of games being released, including Call of Duty 4, Rock Band, Guitar Hero III, Assassin’s Creed, Mass Effect and, still selling from a Fall release, Halo 3.  With all of the record-setting activity on Xbox Live that resulted from these releases, things started to break down.  Microsoft says they weren’t prepared for the load.

Sales of the consoles went up and the network went down.  Microsoft later apologized for the downtime, by giving us Undertow for free.

A quick look at the Xbox 360 Release Schedule for the holidays shows us that we may be in for more of the same.  The number of people playing Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty: World at War may be enough to cause problems, but Guitar Hero: World Tour, Far Cry 2, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, and Endwar.  Even single player titles like Fable II, Fallout 3, Mirror’s Edge and The Last Remnant may put a strain on the network through co-op and other network activity.

Combine that with the fact that Microsoft admitted to network troubles yesterday (via the Major Nelson blog), and that the company will release the new Xbox Live Experience in just three days, and we’ve got a potential blueprint for trouble.

Let’s hope that they’ve learned from last year’s fiasco and are ready to meet the high demands that will come over the holidays.