UPDATE: While the issues with Halo matchmaking persist, the game's executive producer, Dan Ayoub, has written a lengthy letter about what's being done to fix it. You can read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt, which includes an apology:

"We are doing everything we can on an hourly basis to improve the experience, while we work on our solution. In the meantime, we’ve found a few things looking at the data that can help you a little as well. We’re seeing successful match times from anywhere from 15 seconds to 4 minutes. 4 minutes is a long time to wait for a match, but don’t quit out too quickly as it will come. If you haven’t found a match within about 4 minutes, please exit the search and restart, as this will reset the parameters and increase the likelihood of entering a match. I realize this isn’t ideal, but it’s temporary while we sort things out.

I’d like to personally apologize to you all for the current situation. I can assure you we’re attacking this from all directions from 343 Industries to the Xbox platform, and we won’t rest until it’s what it should be. People are reporting improvements across the board, which is great, but we’re not backing down until we finish this fight."

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It's still unclear when (or if) Driveclub will ever be fully operational, but Sony's not the only company facing online issues for a high-profile release. The just launched Halo: The Master Chief Collection has notable matchmaking issues for new players.

A quick search of the terms "halo matchmaking" on Twitter reveals plenty of grumbling, and you have to feel bad for people trying to enjoy a day off with a troubled online game.

343 Industries pointed fans to this support post, promising updates as matchmaking is addressed.

"We are aware of the issues players have been experiencing with matchmaking and we’re working around the clock, alongside the Xbox Live team, to improve the situation. We have deployed an update that has shown some improvement, and we continue to optimize the experience. The update deployed to matchmaking was done on the server side and does not require an extra download to your Xbox One. This is our top priority and will keep everyone updated regularly as we deploy continued improvements."

It was also splitting me from my friends once we actually found games last night. We queued as 3 people and we never once all wound up on the same team. There is certainly some work to do! I'm hopeful it'll be fixed quickly though.

The power of the cloud!

Why someone would take a day off of work on day 1 of a heavily multiplayer focused game, I have no idea. Learn from the past or repeat it. Take Friday off or something and make a 3 day weekend out of it, should be fixed by then.

Thanks for the update Patrick. I've been really digging your coverage this week. And it's only Tuesday!

I hope this gets fixed quick. My copy is coming in the mail today and I carved out my night for some Halo time.

@kanerobot: It's Veteran's Day here in the US so they likely got it off without having to use vacation.

@kanerobot: I wouldn't take off work to play a game but don't blame consumers for companies fucking up. There have been plenty of smooth multiplayer game launches.

@kanerobot: It's veteran's day, they probably had the day off anyway.

More like HALF-LO

I hope this gets fixed, my copy will arrive soon.

@patrick its taken me 6hours to install the game and download the patch. Currently on 92% down. Its been about 1% every 30mins.... Its not my net as i have 70mb/s fibre.

I'm a massive Halo fan boy, so i dont mind the wait

Playing through the Halo 2 campaign right now, guessing it will be working by the time I've finished just in time for the weekend.

I've been nostalgia tripping so hard, I've got all these old albums loaded up on my phone including The Game - The Documentary, Coldplay -X&Y and Kayne West - Late Registration. I'm about to time travel back to the summer of 2005, I can't wait for thanksgiving when i'm back in my parents house playing this, it's going to bring back some memories.

Damn i hate being old.

I'm glad it's not just me!

HALF-LO 3 CONFIRMED

I haven't gotten into a matchmaking game yet. Also, a friend and I were playing Halo 1 legendary co-op in the playlist and the game completely locked up a couple of times. We could still move the camera and use the menus, but even resetting to checkpoint just left us frozen in place.

When this thing is working as intended, it'll be the best game ever released, but right now, unless you're playing custom games or single-player campaigns, it's completely broken.

Bummer, but this unfortunately appears to be the norm for game launches with multiplayer features these days.

They didn't use synthetic load tests for the matchmaker right? :(

It's not just the US. Today is the anniversary of the end of World War 1. It is a holiday in many nations throughout the world although not under the term Veteran's Day.

I usually take launch day off for games I am really excited for. I was looking forward to the MCC, but not so much that I took a day off to play it (mostly because I've played all this before). Boy am I glad I didn't. Still, excited to play MP when it works!

I have yet to get into a match. Wait times of 20 minutes and up. Boo!

I'm probably one of the few people who bought it for mainly single player but that's mainly because I've never played halo online. Still bummed it's not working but I'm totally fine messing with campaign until it's up

I'm fine with matchmaking not working as it will take a day to download patch. What I could not understand though was why they installed Halo 4 first.

A modern video game is having modern video game problems.

I missed the part where he stated he took the game off for Halo specifically... I wasn't aware that people could just chose what days they get off of work. Must be nice in your world.

Speaking of the power of the cloud; all my achievement progress got wiped for Xbox One games. Was about to unlock a couple in Titanfall and the next thing I know, all my progress was set to 0% and wasn't moving. Like that for all my games now.

The power of the cloud...

Actually, a lot of people can choose what days they get off work. It's called a paid vacation day. It is nice in this world!

^That.

Anyway, when the hell can I play single player? This has been on 40% Ready to Start and has yet to get me past the title screen.

Ummm...

I tend to use those days for you know, vacations.

Cool? People are allowed to use "vacation days" for things not absolutely defined as a vacation.

Fuck this boycotting video games forever im burning all my nintendos.

But you don't have to....that's kind of my point. You don't have to necessarily travel somewhere in order to take a paid day off.

On top of that nor only are Achievements not working but I keep getting a message stating "untracked build won't upload" during the campaign that forces me to quit out.

It didn't on Agents of Shield. Two of the guys were clearly playing some lag-free mp.

This. 100x this. What an absolutely infuriating install process.

Not even allowing us to prioritize one over the other? Ridiculous.

My friend says matchmaking is working completely fine now. How's it going for you guys? I'm still installing.

@frostyryan: your friend is full of snot

@samfo: @frostyryan: full of snot indeed. I've gotten into one game so far and it wasn't even full. But when you get in the game it performs very well at least.... Silver lining boys and girls. Silver lining.

Proud owner of a 'bone now! :D :(

I have no restraint.

Anyway playing through halo:ce while multi's borked and love the near 60fps but thought it'd be a tiny bit better looking. Also somewhat antiquated control throwing me for a loop but that's Halo for yaand me not having played this series in awhile. Im just hoping this and FH2 don't end up on PC or ill be kicking myself, at least until some more hot scloosies come out.

Didn't know that! Thank you for enlightening me.

Holy shit the bugs in this are out of hand. Not sure how they let this go gold this way.

I think you're safe. Both first-party games, MS killed GFW without really replacing it and is currently trailing PS4 in total sales, so far as I am aware. Maybe they'll try the whole selling and publishing games on PC thing again on Windows 9Windows 10 Windows Start Menu Edition.

It's almost like they could put some hooks into their own operating system and have a game app that can launch games from any service (with their requisite overlays), getting all your game libraries and organising them in one place, and also sell you games direct through said app from MS in another tab with a version of Live that isn't total garbage and maybe end up making some money off games on their own platform. They could even make a new Freelancer. I'd make some shitty snarky comment about how none of this is going to happen but I'm just bummed out. Freelancer was the best.

Press the view button. Fixes all the graphical problems with Halo:CE

I'm not surprised. I remember I had issues with Halo 4 almost never matching me into a DLC multiplayer map, and I think that was a pretty common complaint that was never fully addressed.