Microsoft Responds to Xbox LIVE Issues - Free XBLA Game For Your Troubles
by Chad Lakkis on January 4, 2008 at 2:31 am
Our apologies for not getting this out to you sooner. See — we were so happy that Xbox LIVE seemed to be back in order, that a bunch of us decided to hop online and enjoy a few matches of COD4.
That left this poor little notice, which we received over an hour ago, sitting unread in our inbox. So, without any further delay, have at Microsoft’s peace offering after the jump.
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
So, there you have it. An official response from the GM of Xbox LIVE. What are your thoughts? Does this make it up to you? Let us know what you think.
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on January 4, 2008 8:27 am
“Does this make it up to you?”
That all depends on what game it is, I suppose.
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on January 4, 2008 10:38 am
Is this going to be like the free 500 Marketplace Points they promised and never credited to my account?
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on January 4, 2008 1:21 pm
THIS is exactly why I want a PS3 now. MS don’t admit they have a problem and say “oh, so sorry for our failings” they say “hey, we’re just too awesome for you. Here, have a free game or something”.
I don’t want a free game (which I don’t get to choose), I want my money back!
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on January 4, 2008 2:32 pm
I hope they let you choose between a few games. Last time we got a free game (Carcassonne), I already had it and didn’t get a replacement game or credit for the price of the game. They probably look at which games are high sellers and give those away for free so they lose less money, those bastards.
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on January 5, 2008 7:07 am
How did they not admit there was a problem? What does this sound like:
“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.”
I don’t see how it gets any easier to see than that, unless you don’t know how to read.
Also, I’m sure the game they’re going to give out will be something stupid or with tons of extra downloads they can make some money off of. That seems to be the way that it works.
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on January 5, 2008 2:02 pm
Cool, they should’ve got this “letter” out sooner, though.
How many will jump ship and how many will NOT buy a 360 because of problems expressed from their friends. Simply because they were not notified in time for them to not be as upset.
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on January 5, 2008 2:29 pm
I am tracking each day(every 10 minutes) the status of xbox live, and creating
statisical images, this shows the biig picture on how “live” xbox-live actually is :)
http://www.acddv.com/
Also these statistics are available for the public as-well
Cem Aykan
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on January 8, 2008 10:06 am
They talk, right in the beginning, about how WE helped them hit all these stupid landmarks like thats going to make us feel happy about it, and then they shit on us.
Even if we got to pick the game, out of ALL of them, I won’t feel reimbursed for the concurrent **** UPS they’ve been having. I pay my 50 dollars for this service, and I expect it to ****ing work.
How many times do we all lose internet from our ISP? I still haven’t, and If i did, I wouldn’t expect the company to go “Oh well, were fixing it gradually, here have a gameboy with the game of our choice.”
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on January 10, 2008 2:07 pm
It doesn’t make up for me. My xbl account ended for the year on January 2nd. Instead of being able to enjoy the end of my year long subscription, I was left sitting at home playing Oblivion because I couldn’t get on XBL.
Those bastards owe me my last month of service :(
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on January 10, 2008 2:17 pm
It is still by far the best online service for a console out there. Considering this was the first major issue, I think you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it is. Yes it was at a bad time over the holidays when everyone wants to play online. Yes they should’ve forseen it coming as well, I’m not saying they’re innocent. Just that the service is still the most consistent out there and if you want to jump ship to PS3, see ya later! More room for me. A game is a small gesture, agreed. Is it worth it? Who knows. But they didn’t have to give anything so this is kinda nice.
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on January 10, 2008 3:21 pm
Figures, everytime M$ comes up with a free xbox live game its one that either a) most people have, which in turn pisses them off…or b) they haven’t gotten the game and are happy
Why the hell don’t they just give us 800 M$ points and let us choose what we want. Seems smarter than potentially pissig off half your customers everytime you offer something for free.
How about just making xbox live free?..then you wouldn’t have to compensate us for when your service goes down.
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on January 15, 2008 9:51 am
whoop whoop shout for joy they going to give us a game we don’t want for they mistake how about 2 months free instead or should that be 3 as it still is not working right
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