Free XBLA game for LIVE troubles

[Clipse]

As many of you know, I have keeping you up to date on the status of Xbox LIVE. Here is an official message from Marc Whitten (Notwen) GM of Xbox LIVE on where we are and what we are going to do. Again, thanks for your patience.

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


Source: Major Nelson (http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2008/01/03/xbox-live-holiday-performance.aspx)

[The Killer 47]

I'm assuming this will be a currently unreleased arcade game? Its always nice to get stuff for free regardless of the quality.

[Azeron]

Meh. I just hope IW will hold one of those double exp weekends like they did for the ps3 version.

[iJohn]

I want something good for their horrible service:p

[Veritas347]

Well this is good to hear at least they are repaying us for our suffering of terrible connections and unsuccessful games being started in CoD4. I'm glad they are rewarding us

[Turbo VDuB 44]

I didn't have any problems and i'm getting a free game??! hell ya! Hopefully it's SWoS but i doubt it:(

[NATERZ]

I was having all kinds of problems. It's about time Microsoft does something for their customers!!!!


Hopefully we will be able to pick the game we want and not have them give us something stupid.

I wonder if the game they offer is something we already have if we get to pick something else???????????

[Nbag3]

Free is always good, I hope it isn't Totemball 2.

[justcallmeChill]

Free is always good, I hope it isn't Totemball 2.

i wouldnt even download that

[XXXJUICEDXXX]

Is this gonna happen before of after they fix xbox live. Please don't be something like Yaris.

[graf1k]

It needs to be something crazy like Castle Crashers to make up for last week. Of course it'll probably be something more along the lines of that fucking Yaris game.

[Haly]

Whatever it is, I think it's good they've acknowledged they screwed up.

[DrHerbz]

I hope we get some kind if option to download something in the 800MS points region, would be unfair to just hand out a given game unless its brand new. Maybe it'll be that pirate dodge ball game? ;)

Wouldn't it be easier to give out MS points? Or won't they do that in case it gets abused in someway?

[Flea]

I just hope they dont give us a choice of a few old games that we all own already,
that would just be another slap in the face.

[Bradmatic]

this i guess is good news as they're acknowleding theat they screwed up but i still cant get onto most retail games without it cutting me from xbox live and saying i havent got a valid connection as well as my dashboard still not loading so this free arcade game wouldnt even matter to me seeing as i cant even access the marketplace. AARRGGHH lol

[v0lum3]

... I don't care about most XBOX Arcade games... I probably won't care about this at all :( Why don't they just refund me some cash on my credit card or throw me a few free market place points?

[Rocket]

Watch it be like Asteroids or something. Or Spongebob...it's more than likely going to be something OLD that no one plays anymore, or something recent that hasn't been getting much DL attention. But, since I already have Asteroids, I hope it isn't that...

[Exane22]

I hope they decide to do a new game that hasnt been out yet, that would do ms some good in the eyes of gamers. Personally i hope they are truly sorry for this screw up and arnt just talking out there ass. I guess we will see, at least it will be free and that is usually a good thing :D

[tjayars]

I'm with turbo, I didnt have any problems. Thanks for the free game though.

[Clipse]

Flea and I had this conversation yesterday but I guess neither of us thought of a free game. Flea did have a good point though, one of the reasons MS probably wouldn't give out 400 or 800 MS points for our troubles is because of how those might be used. Lets say they give use 800 MS Points and we go off and buy SWOS. Well that game was developed by Codemasters and I'm sure MS has a distribution agreement with Codemasters so that when a customer purchases SWOS with MS Points MS then pays Codemasters a share of that revenue. By MS giving LIVE customers MS Points it might cost them more than just offering a free game that they developed and hold all the rights to; this way they don't have to incur additional cost to themselves.

As for what game its going to be thats left to be unsaid at this point. One of the problems they'd have is offering a free game that gamers might already have. Their best bet is to offer a currently unreleased game that'll be coming out in the coming months. This way its fair to everyone. They can't go multiple games for free, because they know how all you are and you'd download all 3 games if 3 games were offered. :p

[antilucid]

Mmm free game. It better be one I don't have. I felt robbed when everyone got Carcassonne for free in November and I had been playing it since summer. Better yet, a choice between a few games and a gamerpic that says "I survived Xbox Live's problems." :p

[D3AD ROMANC3]

it will blatently be a game i already have :( it would be cool if we could choose from any game on the marketplace :)

[Azeron]

Mmm free game. It better be one I don't have. I felt robbed when everyone got Carcassonne for free in November and I had been playing it since summer. Better yet, a choice between a few games and a gamerpic that says "I survived Xbox Live's problems." :p
...and all I got was this stupid gamerpic." :D

[tenaciousdave]

It'll probably be another copy of uno or robotron. haha. I think I have like ten codes for both of those.

[Dan Daywalker]

I had a shit load of problems with live, my account still isnt recoverable. It starts to and then decides it cant be bothered to finish half way through the recovery!

And at one point it took 20 mins to access the marketplace on my new account. :mad:

[Anti Hero]

Thats nice that there giving us a free game..I hope its metal slug 3!

[XXXJUICEDXXX]

Any info on this free game.? Been a few weeks now.

[Clipse]

Any info on this free game.? Been a few weeks now.

Nope, and there probably won't be since MS is being sued by some dumb ass Texans who couldn't play CoD4 or Halo 3 over Christmas. The funny thing is its a civil suit for the time LIVE was down, no more than 5 bucks... the free game... well thats 5 bucks too. Just so happened that the suit was started before MS said they'd give a game. Personally I'm waiting for the suit to be dropped, MS to come out and say they can't give a free game, then I'll follow up with a civil lawsuit against the 3 dipshits from Texas over the free game which could cost them millions.

Only in America... :D

[XXXJUICEDXXX]

Boooooooooooooooo another lie. Gamefly gives you 5 bucks every 3 months and microsoft got to have something bad happen to give ....or wait a min , to lie about a give.

[Clipse]

Boooooooooooooooo another lie. Gamefly gives you 5 bucks every 3 months and microsoft got to have something bad happen to give ....or wait a min , to lie about a give.

It's not a lie, its just that nothing can be mentioned from their reps mouths about the outage. Major Nelson has stated that he can't even say anything about the status of LIVE. If you want to be pissed off then you should be, but not at MS. You should be pissed off at the people who started the lawsuit. LIVE goes down and people sue; bitch of it is no where in the agreement does it say that "this service will never go down".

Furthermore to show how frivolous this lawsuit is look at the lawsuit slapped on Bungie over Halo 3 not being 720 pixels according to Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/08/halo-3-class-action-lawsuit-rewards-money-to-those-hurt-by-lack/). What good does this do anyone? To be hones I wish they'd fine the hell out of these people and I'm talking thousands and thousands of dollars?

[RoAFie]

*crosses fingers for Aegis Wing 2*