Microsoft and Sky have responded to the disastrous launch of Sky Player on Xbox Live by blaming consumer demand. The television and movie streaming service should have been available from this Tuesday, but was pulled after technical difficulties.

In a joint statement Microsoft and Sky have today apologized for the delay, and outlined their intentions to roll-out the service in phases over the course of the day. Basically, if you are a subscriber and everything isn’t up and running now, then it will be soon.

Here’s what they had to say about it. “Sky Player on Xbox 360 launched on Tuesday 27th October and was met with phenomenal demand, with many tens of thousands of customers attempting to sign up within the first hour of launch,” said the companies.

“Unfortunately due to the unprecedented levels of simultaneous demand, we did not have the capacity to satisfy all service requests and therefore temporarily suspended all access to the service.

“Today, the roll-out will be implemented in phases to ensure that consumers experience both a smooth sign-up process and high-quality experience. We apologise to all customers that have not been able to experience Sky Player on Xbox 360, we assure them that this is being rectified and we thank them for their patience”.