The really puzzling thing about the continuing problems with Microsoft’s XBox Live service is why the company apparently is unable to get a grip on the situation. After all, if Microsoft aspires to get into ‘cloud’ computing, then it’s got to be able to handle volume. And that’s what it clearly has been unable to do over the recent Christmas period.

If Microsoft wants to rev up the online business generated from its Live strategy, it didn’t engender a lot of confidence among customers in recent weeks. The Xbox Live online service suffered outages and intermittent service for almost two weeks and even the Zune marketplace shut down temporarily.

The outage began Dec. 22 — the Saturday before the week of Christmas — and continued through the end of the year.

High traffic levels seem a likely suspect for the problems, which may have been exacerbated by high traffic stemming from new users beginning on Christmas Day…

Er, I write with feeling about this, not because I’m an online gamer, but because some of the younger members of my household are!