XboxCircle


Xbox Live subscribers to get free game for downtime

January 4th, 2008 by in Xbox 360

The holiday season hasn’t been friendly to Xbox Live subscribers, as the service has had numerous issues over the last few weeks. Microsoft has acknowledged the problem and said that subscribers would get some kind of compensation for the downtime. Marc Whitten, General Manager of Xbox Live, has given an update on the issue and announced that subscribers will be getting a free Xbox Live Arcade game as a thank you for sticking with the service.

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

We can’t help but feel that many will not be satisfied with a free Arcade game, especially if Microsoft goes and offers a game that the majority has. Would it not be easier to just offer Microsoft Points and let the subscriber choose what to do with the points? We’ll see how it all unfolds in the coming weeks.



Comments:

  1. I agree.. If they let us CHOOSE which game we want, and also include some of the real games (i.e. psychonaughts), that would satisfy me.

    Point? Yeah, points would be great!      by Jafo
  2. True story. They're not spending any money by giving subscribers free points.

    Just read a story on the issue and they've calculated that gold subscribers lost under approximately $1.50 of their subscription during the "downtime." I have no idea how they worked that out.

    Nevertheless, I'm with you Jafo. I don't want them to say, "here, take a free copy of geometry wars." Although it is free and I don't want to bitch and complain about it, I'd rather have them other a choice of 5 free arcade titles to choose from or let us pick either an xbox original, an arcade title, or a free rental. Don't shove free crap down our throats, but show you actually care and give a choice.

    I do, however, guarantee that the Arcade title they do give us will be a game that has absolutely no sales and attach rate, ensuring that arguably 95% of subscribers won't have it and won't have a reason to complain.      by Stifler
  3. If they are going to give a free XBLA game to all of their subscribers (a few million?), that's a ton of lost revenue right there. Even though it's one game per person, you have to realize we're all a small fish in a large pond.

    I'd still prefer a larger 'reward' but a free XBLA game is fine by me.      by Casper
  4. But I really doubt that every single subscriber is going to download the free game. While they are going to offer it, I doubt they will lose as much money as they would offering a free Xbox Original game, or a free rental. I think more people would take that offer up than a free arcade game.      by bmdubya
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