On 'Live' Support

What happened to Xbox Live over the holidays?

I've heard everything from hacker assaults to overloads from all the new members. The latter being the official word on the subject. It's easy to believe that from the glut of new games released over the fall/winter/holiday buying period. But if that's the case, why hasn't this happened before?

There were lots of games released last year too. What changed? Did Live get too big too fast? As long as it's working now, I suppose no one really cares but still...

Edit: forgot to mention the free game. MS is giving away a free Arcade title to all Live members who got caught up in the outage. Pretty cool move, at least it softens the blow of not being able to play online during one of the only times when everybody gets a chance too. When they announce the details, (should be in the next few weeks) I'll post 'em up.