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Microsoft Giving Xbox Live Users a Free Game

Posted by Soulskill on from the angered-texans-inconsolable dept.

Earlier this week we covered the Xbox Live outages over the holidays. Several users have pointed out that Microsoft has acknowledged its lack of performance, and is now offering a free game to compensate its users. Unfortunately for Microsoft, disgruntled patrons have already filed a class action lawsuit over the recent difficulties. Quoting the PC World article: "Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten said that the problems with Xbox Live downtime were caused by an influx of new users who had gotten an Xbox 360 over the holidays. It's been a record-setting season for Xbox Live. '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,' said Whitten."

11 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Class Action!? by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Okay - I realise it's annoying when a service doesn't work, but only a little bit. Considering every single user of the service likes to play games, a free game seems a perfectly good level of compensation.

    1. Re:Class Action!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Considering every single user of the service likes to play games, a free game seems a perfectly good level of compensation."

      A good level of compensation would be making the service work, dammit. "Hey, Xbox LIVE isn't working, so here, have a free LIVE game. What do you mean you can't play it?". LIVE isn't working, the article says they're offering a free Xbox LIVE Arcade game. Could someone explain the logic behind this?

    2. Re:Class Action!? by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... until it crashes the Xbox Live servers when everyone tries to download that game ;-)

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      Apology to Ubuntu forum.
    3. Re:Class Action!? by stuboogie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Could someone explain the logic behind this?"
      This is Insightful???

      So, you must think that the technical issues with Xbox Live are all part of Microsoft's evil plan? Yes, if you listen carefully in the direction of Redmond, you can hear a faint "Eeeexcellent!"

      They are providing an Xbox Live game as compensation because they expect the technical issues to be resolved soon. Is that logical enough for you?

      Really, I'm quite sure that those responsible for Xbox Live are working overtime trying to get the issues resolved. Do you REALLY think MS wants bad PR over the online service for their console?? They have taken it in the shorts financially trying to get the Xbox into the console market. Now that they are actually seeing some improvements in market share, they're just going to alienate their new found customers?? It seems that they had a much higher than anticipated growth in the 4th quarter of '07. Maybe someone dropped the ball in being prepared, but they will get the issues resolved as quickly as possible.
      Why? Because it is good for business. Xbox Live is a huge selling point for their console.

      As a consumer, I would be upset if the service I paid for did not work. In this case, MS is offering a form of compensation. Is this form of compensation adequate for all users? I would say probably not. I'm sure many would prefer a refund. Well, how much is MS required to refund to all users? Do they just give everyone $5 back? In my opinion, extending each users subscription by a month would be a more equitable compensation than an arcade game that many may not even want. Still, I'm not sure MS is legally bound to provide any compensation for these issues, but they have. To file a class-action lawsuit is a bit over the top though, and I doubt it will go anywhere.

      On a side note. How are the online services for the other consoles doing????

  2. Class action? by ricebowl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Given the results of the class action law suit against Sony, due to the unlawful/undisclosed root-kitting of consumers' computers, I can imagine that the free game, already offered by Microsoft, is probably going to exceed any class action payout. Unless, of course, you happen to be a lawyer.

    In which case it's probably a worth-while pursuit.

    I aren't a member of X-Box Live though, so your level of frustration may make it worth the time, though if you were frustrated by poor service over the holidays I can't imagine that a law suit will be any less frustrating...

  3. Re:Problems still not resolved as of last night... by noidentity · · Score: 3, Insightful

    '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,' said Whitten.

    With all that influx of cash, couldn't you divert some of it to funding, you know, new servers and stuff like that?

  4. Re:pretending they didn't see this coming? by AndrewM1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Remember that only a portion of XBoxes sold will ever show up on XB Live - I own an XBox 360, and I've never once connected it to the net. Hence, Microsoft has to make a guess at what portion of sold XBoxes will wind up on the net, and apparently guessed wrong. (I.e. The net supports 100,000, and we sell 200,000 but only about 1 in 2 ever gets onto the net, so we're good) Still really dumb, but a far cry from the picture of them malevolently planning network outages that you paint.

  5. Re:If this all had to do with the holiday weekend. by jounihat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Granted, the online experience on the PS3 and Wii is fairly primitive compared to XBL... Fairly primitive? I can play Resistance in PSN with 39 other players without any lag whatsoever. Maybe XBL has some advantages over PSN, but that argument works vice versa also. I think in the end they're both quite on par at the moment.
  6. Re:In Other News: Sony says... by gamer4Life · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's a great thing that it's free. Not sure why people would want to pay for online and add another $250 to their total cost of gaming over the life of their console.

  7. Re:dodge the chair by beckerist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because I'm typing this on a legal XP box that has never failed on me in the 3 years I've owned and upgraded it.
    Because this is the first time I've ever experienced this on XBLive and I've been playing since Halo 2 was released.
    My Xbox red-ringed last year. Without a penny paid they shipped me a box in 2 days, and I had a working Xbox in 5 business days. Did it suck? Yep, but they took care of it as they will (and are) this. If people really needed the entertainment THAT BAD then they should have maybe played a card game with their parents. This lawsuit is dumb.

  8. Go to the source, article is plagiarized by daVinci1980 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Honestly, the author took this posting over at the official xbox site, and then snipped together almost every single sentence with 'Whitten said'. Although, to be fair, I think about 15% of the middle of the article has some original thought. (The part where they explain what xbox live is). Of course, they could've just linked to the pages describing membership, instead.

    The author then failed to cite the original article. What a piece of journalistic crap. PCWorld, MacWorld and Peter Cohen should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for writing and publishing this drivel.

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    I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.