At the time of this writing, Xbox Live is currently down. Turning on your Xbox 360 will give you a 'signed into Live' message, but then the system will idle for a bit (as seen above) and return to the sign in message. This of course follows Monday's background update meant to help prepare for the switchover to the New Xbox Experience in November, and the multitude of problems that followed. The US Xbox 360 support site currently lists Live status thusly:

Users will not be able to connect or log into Xbox LIVE. We are aware of the problem and working to resolve the issue. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Patience, my friends. I'm sure the issues will clear up soon enough. In the meantime I urge my friends to stop IMing me to complain that they cannot play Call of Duty 4 online.

[Thanks Rodney!]

Update: Larry Hryb, director of Xbox Live, tells me that the engineers have figured out what's wrong and are working on a solution.

If you're looking for an excuse to get an Xbox Core Arcade Bundle (second console perhaps? I dunno), Amazon would like to provide one: You get Lego Batman for free. Or, put another way, if you consider it a $199 purchase of Lego Batman, they throw in the console for free. It's a big family-game promo that we antifamily, antisocial types can still take advantage of.

This is in addition to a slate of other price cuts the online retailer introduced this month, including discounts on yearlong Xbox Live subs, Xbox Live points, and extra controllers.

Xbox 360 Family Game of the Month [Amazon, via PunchJump]

Check your email, you probably just got a notice from Microsoft inviting you to a site demonstrating the new Xbox Live experience. No, a release date is not specified. The site features examples of the content and features you can expect once it does arrive, presented in a simulation of the new dashboard. There are videos on avatar creation and interaction with your friends (some of which we've already seen), and another touting its online entertainment capabilities. Everything has the bigger-better-more company shine on it. The addition of the Inside Xbox channel looks intriguing, but few specifics beyond the teasers offered.

New Xbox Experience [Xbox.com]

Just a reminder that come Monday, Live goes dead for 24 hours. Meantime Microsoft is larding up the weekend with a bunch of Play & Win sweepstakes. We've already mentioned the GTA IV Live Weekend, but there's also a raft of prizes being offered for Madden 09, NCAA 09, and NASCAR 09 -- and, if I'm reading it right -- if you go put some T-Mobile advertisement on your gamer picture and play Lego Batman, you can be entered to win some shit there, too. Then the power outrage strikes at 12:01 AM PDT Monday. This won't deliver the new Xbox Live dashboard, it's just "in preparation" for its arrival.

Calendar of Events -- Play & Win [Xbox.com]

It's Rockstar Games' first Grand Theft Auto IV Live Weekend on Xbox Live, and everybody's invited! You know the basics by now...anyone who signs up and participates in an online GTA IV match between now and Sunday evening has a chance to win hourly prizes consisting of GTA IV swag like shirts, hats, hoodies, licence plates, and more, with a grand prize of an Xbox 360 Elite console and even more swag up for grabs. Rockstar is doing their part as well, with anyone checking stats or joining the Rockstar Games Social Club over the weekend will be entered in a sweepstakes to win a home entertainment package valued at more than $6000 or a runner- prize of a custom GTA IV branded 360 and even more swag.

Things are kicking off today from 3:00PM to 9:00PM Eastern with a whole slew of GTA IV devs online to play against fans of the game. Hit the jump for a list of Rockstar gamertags to add to your friends list.

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The new Xbox dashboard - or Xbox Experience if you're in the business of writing Microsoft's press releases - will be with us sometime in November, if this Rock Band 2 ad is to be believed. And really, why wouldn't it be. It's not like they're mincing their words. It says, straight-up, the new Xbox Experience is coming in November. And in a second ad, after the jump, it says it again. Which is important to know, just in case you had any big Xbox Experience parties planned for next month. Maybe at a venue that won't return your deposit.

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Xbox Live is going down! On Monday, September 29th at 12:01 AM, the Xbox Live service will be coming down for maintenance that could last up to 24 hours, according to Microsoft's Larry Hryb. The outage will affect the Xbox Live and My Xbox sections of the of Xbox.com as well, and forums will be set to read only for the duration. It's all in preparation for the impending launch of The New Xbox Experience, but only in preparation for it, so don't expect to hop back online when the service goes up and get to work crafting your shiny new avatar. Enjoy the old Xbox experience while you still can!

Xbox Live Service Maintenance [Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

Polls, polls, polls. Forget for a moment how the candidates are doing in Gallup polls, how are they doing on Xbox LIVE? Microsoft has released the results of its LIVE poll, and the results are:

Obama/Biden: 43 percent
McCain/Palin: 31 percent
Undecided: 13 percent
Other: 13 percent

According to Microsoft, almost 100,000 LIVE Americans participated in this LIVE survey, making it larger than combined samples from Gallup or NBC polls. Take that for whatever it's worth.

[Pic]

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Next weekend the Rockstar's development team is hopping on Xbox Live to take on all comers in Grand Theft Auto IV.

The special Xbox Live Weekend runs from Friday, September 26 through Sunday, September 28 in the United States and Canada and is only open to Xbox LIVE Gold members.

Members of the team will be online between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday to hand out ass-whoopings. There will also be a sweepstakes, which anyone can enter by registering online at www.xbox.com/causechaos before midnight on Sept. 28. You can also register by downloading the free GTA IV Live Weekend Gamer pic before the deadline. Prize packs include Rockstar gear and an Xbox 360 Elite with a 12-month Live Gold subscription card.

Another contest, held on Rockstar Games webportal Social Club, will hand out prizes to some of those who sign on to their web accounts anytime between today and September 28. Those prizes include a home entertainment system worth more than $6,000, a GTA-branded Xbox 360 and other GTA merch. Hit up the Social Club for more details on that.

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This month sees the largest addition to the Xbox Originals program for the Xbox 360 ever, with a more than 61 games hitting the service on September 15th. Of course all but one of those games is part of Crave's Intellivision Reborn compilation - which incidentally failed to spark a rebirth of the Intellivision - but if we're going to get technical about things than none of those even count, having not originally appeared on the Xbox. So, a whole slew of Intellivision Games of dubious quality, and one excellent alien invasion title in THQ's Destroy All Humans, a game that received the coveted Fahey award for Best Use Of Zim in a Non-Zim role.

Thanks to Mustapha for pointing out the new additions.