As many of you know, last Christmas (2007) Xbox Live
shat itself and caused no end of problems for many members both Gold and Silver. Everything from account recovery, dashboard hangups, online match-making problems etc etc. According to Microsoft, that was due mostly to all the new XBL members who signed up during Christmas when they got their new X360's.
Unofficially, I believe it's people
like this clogging the gaming interwebs with their enthusiasm. Or perhaps
these kids have a cousin in Redmond, Washington who peed on a server at daddy's Christmas party, who knows.
In any case, Microsoft has acknowledged, apologized and plans to compensate Xbox Live members for their troubles sometime in the coming weeks. Here's the official statement from Marc Whitten on the
www.Xbox.com website:
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
A nice gesture and no doubt both costly for them and a big logistical undertaking to set up. Hopefully it'll be a really good game, no doubt a Microsoft Game Studio published one and one that will fit on the small memory cards.
I'll take a stab at it and guess it'll be either Hexic 2, Catan or Jetpac Refueled. if it's a 3rd party title, Pac-Man CE, Uno or Metal Slug 3. Yeah MS3 is new, but that's my surprise pick. There's a possibility it may be a game not yet released as well, giving away a title that a million gamers already own would be a bone-headed move on their part after all.
In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out for more details and will post them ASAP. Until then, keep reading, there's always something on channels 3 & 4.
Original Article:http://www.xbox.com/en-US...ort/live/serviceissue.htm
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Sweet! I don't even use Live, but I'll take a free game download! :-D
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I agree that it's likely to be a new or rather new title. Free stuff is free stuff! 
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That's a really nice move. I just hope they give you any free game you want. (REZ HD! REZ HD! REZ HD!)
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Wow....that's good news...hopefully, like everyone said it is a new game (or at least something that I don't already own.)
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Sweet a free game. To bad I missed the last free game.
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Hopefully they'll just give us free Microsoft points... if not, I hope it's not another weird game made by Toyota, but since it's free I won't complain too much either way. My Xbox Live time got screwed when my 6 month old Elite died on Xmas day, so I'm going to be out a month as it is.
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I'm hoping for Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe. I know it's been out awhile, but I've always liked the game...plus I'm a cheapass.
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Pac-Man CE would be a nice one, I'll take it now while I wait for a XBL compilation disc. 
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Nice move by Microsoft!
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@Tan:
I'm in the same boat with you. I recently purchased a MS points card, but I'm hesitant to spend it because I don't want to buy some game and then have it show up on the next "unplugged" disc.
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"According to Microsoft, that was due mostly to all the new XBL members who signed up during Christmas when they got their new X360's."
Those bastards! I knew it was them. Even when I thought it was the hippies, I knew it was them.
@captain_nintendo: Too bad you'll miss out on this. 
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The points would be nice, but they couldn't control where it was used. That would mean the 3rd parties who have games and content would lose money for freebies at MS's expense when MS can give away points at will if they choose.
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I can feel it... Spongebob Squarepants: Underpants Slam!
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That or they raise the price on Yaris and give it to you for free.
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@TraderJake - That would be good by me. Easy achievement points!
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Well it will be nice if its something you guys don't have, but what about gamers like myself?
I have all the arcade titles already so am I going to get a refund? The outage effected me too, so how about some points that we can use on whatever title, gamerpic, theme , etc that we choose?
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If they offer a game of your choice it would be fine because you can get whatever new ones come out.
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@s1lence:
Perhaps they expect you to gift it?
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I wouldn't mind a Xbox Original download either, assuming they slap some more games in the list. Something I don't own would be nice. Since Xbox1 games can be played online with the 360 cross platform with Xbox1, There may be a few out there worthy of a go.
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Jake :
I would totally gift it.
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@ James....
Hell no I wont ;P
Scott has my hard drive, and he will download the thing for me. XD
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@captain_nintendo:
In case you wonder how to get the @ James to be @James -> At the bottom right corner of every post is Direct Response at this post. Click that.
This friendly tip brought to you by Microsoft. Microsoft. We're sorry, please take this free XBLA game, Yaris.
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@TraderJake:
I did do the direct response before, it didn't go through for some reason.
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