Xbox Live Problems Hit Burnout 3

Despite considerable sales success since its release last week, consumer complaints about the online stability of Burnout 3, particularly on the Xbox, have caused Electronic Arts to briefly take the online servers offline today as technicians instigate 'server maintenance' and 'lobbyserver deployment'. Users have complained about multiple crash-related issues related to playing the game online through the Xbox Live lobby system - these issues may be partly due to the extreme popularity of Burnout 3, with the game likely to top charts in multiple territories. The server maintenance today will apparently be completed by 2.00 AM PDT, although it's unclear exactly how many of these problems will be permanently addressed. Burnout 3 is the first game in the Criterion-developed Burnout series to be published by Electronic Arts, following the developer's recent purchase by EA, and one of the company's first non-sports titles to support Xbox Live. Some commentators are arguing that EA's use of the Xbox Live Server Protocol system, enabling the company to run its own Xbox Live servers with less control exerted by Microsoft, may also be causing teething problems.