Microsoft has said that it is dealing with "intermittent errors" on Xbox Live, Xbox.com and Games for Windows.

While the company has just acknowledged the problems, however, it would appear from customer feedback that the problem has been occurring for some time. The mid-June update has been fingered as the starting point.

Microsoft has not said what is causing the problem... and there was definitely no mention of Silverlight.

The statement from the Xbox Live Operations team goes like this:

"We’re aware of intermittent errors in Marketplace that are affecting Xbox Live, Xbox.com, and Games for Windows. You may run into one of a few different status codes including 80004004, 807B01F4, and 8015000a. It may also show that you haven’t purchased content that you have – don’t worry, we haven’t lost your purchase even though it may appear so.

"This can occur whether you’re searching Marketplace from the Dashboard or from within a game.

"There’s a team of people actively working on the issue. Our apologies for the hassle - we’ll get this resolved as soon as we can."

^{Source: Xbox Live Operations Blog via Softpedia}