Now I've been known to take things to extremes when it comes to my gaming. There has definitely been more than one occasion where I've gotten a game and not moved from my seat for upwards of 22 hours. These things happen with me

Knowing that about me, hear me when I say that the Xbox Live Video Marketplace is an absolute time sink, money sink, and blood-pressure aggravator.

In all honesty, i've been an XBL subscriber for two years and this is absolutely the most irritating thing I've ever come across.

The day the service was released, I spent maybe 20 minutes going through the catalogue of content, looking for something that was -- first -- in high definition and -- second -- that I hadn't seen. My apartment is maybe seven minutes' driving time away from a Hollywood Video that stocks more movies than I'll ever have time to watch, but being the kinda guy I am, I figured I'd give Microsoft's service a fair shake at my business.

Eventually I settled on Mel Gibson's pre-tPotC epic: We Were Soldiers.

I'm a sucker for war movies, and this was one that I had missed because the girl I was dating didn't like how MG's face looked -- and I'm a guy who likes to keep his lady happy. Right, TMI. We'll just move on.

So it's 1 p.m. when I start downloading the 1.9 gig SD file (they didnt have anything in hi-def I wanted to see). I'll now mention that I have a 8 megabit upload and a 1.5 download, so my connection is speedy.

Long story short, 36 hours later (as I get home from my folks house, having left the console on through my Thanksgiving), the file is only 60 percent completed.

Wow.

Anybody had similar experiences? Join me after the jump for a little discussion of MS, expectations and responsibility.

I've been getting in fights with Sherveen over at MyGamerCard.net about this one. He seems to think that since I'm not badmouthing Sony or Nintendo for having laggy downloads that it's hypocritical of me to now hold Microsoft's feet to the fire for the sub-par performance of its service on opening day.

Here's what I think:

Sony and Nintendo are NEW to this whole online thing, having both just launched their services. When Microsoft utterly botched the "Bringing It Home for E3" event with terribly slow downloads, I didn't take it to them. When TGS rolled around, I felt like they should have known better but ultimately, I was kind. When it launched a new "flagship" service on the one-year anniversary of the console launch? Um, yeah -- this is bullshit.

Beyond even the "experience" factor that puts Microsoft as fair game in my little mind, it's ALSO the ONLY CONSOLE that is charging for onlne service. This says nothing of the fact that the downloads are a litle expensive at between $4 and $6 for what amounts to 24 hours worth of viewing time.

When I woke up this morning, I found the file was FINALLY downloaded -- but now I really have no idea when I'll have the time to sit down and watch a two-and-one-half-hour long movie. The sad fact of the matter is I likely won't use this service again because my first experience with it has very much left a bad taste in my mouth. As I said before, Microsoft has been doing this for a long time and they SHOULD KNOW that when they roll out a feature like that, they need to have systems in place to mediate the sudden demand. This is Microsoft we're talking about! How hard would it be for them to just buy a damn ISP.

Good lord, talk about amateur hour up in Redmond.