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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