Free XBOX Live Arcade Game to be given out for XBOX Live Issues

[TTR Dr Payne]

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/live/serviceissue.htm

An Open Letter from Marc Whitten about Xbox LIVE this Holiday

Published January 3, 2008



Dear Xbox LIVE Members:

During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records. This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service.

As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break. While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance. I would like to take this moment to thank you each and every one of you for your patience and understanding as our team has worked around the clock to return the service to a stable state.

At the same time we would like to offer a token of our appreciation to all of you in celebration of record success for the service. And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge. In the coming weeks we will be sharing the specific details of this offer with you.

Thank you again for helping make Xbox LIVE everything that it is today!

Sincerely,

Marc Whitten

General Manager, Xbox LIVE

Gamertag: Notwen

[FragEmAndSmile]

I hope we can choose which game to get instead of them giving us Joust or Robotron again...

[Other]

So do I because I already have a free download of Robotron that came with my Gold card. I'm just glad it wasn't a problem with my connection. It took me 6 hours to sign up for the first time.

[paintba||er]

Why don't they just extend our Live subscription by a month rather than giving us some useless bullshit that nobody wants?

And why in the bloody hell did he put his GamerTag in the announcement? Is he that desperate for friends?

[TTR Dr Payne]

hes the freikin GM of XBOX Live paint, hes putting his GT in there so ppl can message him and talk with him.

I also hope it isnt Joust or Robotron, because i already got given them for free from XBL lol.

I think its going to be a new release game and not an already released one, well at least i hope so...unless its Bomerman..i could go for bomberman

[paintba||er]

It seems that an email address would be much more suited for such things...

The game will probably be one of those that they were going to give free anyway, and they're just using it to make up for this even though they planned on doing it before.

[B1GDADDYK00LA1D]

Free games.. and you can still can't please people. I was aggravated with how XBL was performing as well but you can't expect something to operate so efficiently especially for an online network all the time.

[paintba||er]

But its not really free. We're just forced to buy it rather than getting the service that we wanted.

Its like this: "We're sorry that your heating has been turned off for the last month, you still have to pay the bill for something that you didn't receive, but we're going to give you this complementary bikini." But you're a male who lives in Alaska.

[Player911]

I dunno. I think they should have a website where you can signin and redeem 800 points to your account.

This way, they don't waste giving people points that don't want an arcade game and they won't give away points for people who don't know about it.

Some people won't know about it and thus won't get the points, but nothing goes to waste (they're available if you want them).

[TTR Dr Payne]

I read a comment somewhere, think it might have been in the comments on Major Nelsons site about this, and one person said "I dont want a free game, I just want M$ to pay for the 2 weeks of Live i lost."

A responce to that was somebody saying that 2 weeks of Live really doesnt cost a thing, a XBLA game will probably cost $10..

paint, that analogy doesnt really fit this situation at all..I see your point, but it doesnt really compare.

I would imagine what M$ will do, instead of just making a game available for free so only the people who know about this free game will get it, but I think they will do what they usually do, and send a message out to all members saying there is a free game available as compensation so everybody will know about it.

[Tearo]

Actually,I think this is a good place to start using the M.S. point gifting system..I think a certain person on xbox live..His gamertag might be Notwen should gift everyone a certain ammount of the M.S. points using the point gifting system..

[TTR Dr Payne]

That is a good idea, only problem being M$ have made this point gifting system only available in the US...