The Live service was up and down like a yo-yo over the weekend, big boss Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb stating yesterday that he hoped most of the problems were resolved before fresh connectivity emerged.

We now learn that Live has actually be taken wholly off-line this morning, engineers taking everything down in order to try and fix these widespread problems once and for all.

Intense demand from those playing new games like 2 and Call of Duty: World at War is possibly part of the problem, although Microsoft will be keen to avoid a repeat of their problems last - which saw persistent Live troubles spark lawsuits and recriminations.

Then of course there's the small matter of the New Xbox Experience, out at the end of the week... we'll keep you posted.

By Luke Guttridge