Microsoft offers free XBLA game to make up for Live downtime @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on January 04, 2008

News: But they haven't said which game yet.

Microsoft has finally come out and talked publicly about the downtime and other problems the Xbox Live service suffered from over the holidays. They have apologized to the users and to make amends the company plans to offer each Xbox Live user a free Xbox Live Arcade game. They have not announced what game or games they will be offering, but they have said details will be coming "in the coming weeks."

Can I make a suggestion Microsoft? Give us the Points and let us spend it as we see fit. Here's the full letter from Marc Whitten, General Manager of Xbox Live:

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

We'll have more soon.