Undertow is officially Microsoft’s sacrificial lamb, offered up to all the players who suffered through the recent Xbox Live outages.

According to Mark Whitten, General Manager for Xbox Live:

We’re pleased to announce that from 2:00 a.m. PST Wednesday, January 23, 2008 through 11:59 p.m. PST, Sunday, January 27, 2008 you can download the full version of the recent Xbox LIVE Arcade game, Undertow free of charge.

It does make you wonder what good this does for people who already downloaded the game when it originally released on the service several months ago. Apparently you can dial up Microsoft support when the promotion starts and they’ll “take care of you,” though exactly what you’ll be receiving instead is unknown (likely those 800 points back).

Just as well, what does developer Chair stand to get out of this? While it’s sure to bring more attention to their somewhat underappreciated game (not to mention that it could prop up the sagging multiplayer community surrounding it), we do hope they’re being compensated in a more traditional fashion for all the free downloads Microsoft is handing out next week.

If you’re interested in what Undertow has to offer, you can check out its promotional site here. If it’s not to your liking, well, at least they’re not forcing you to download (already free) Yaris.

Tags: free-game, Microsoft, outage, problem, trouble, undertow, Xbox 360, Xbox-Live

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3 Comments » Jonathan Zungre on January 18, 2008 7:56 pm I heard undertow is supposed to be a pretty fantastic game, but why so few days to download it?? Larry Smith on January 19, 2008 2:17 pm I prefer to play with Rebbie. Love Ya Syngenetic on January 20, 2008 3:01 am Glad to see Microsoft giving away something for free. Can’t wait till January 23rd when it comes out. Syn, RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.