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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."

2 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Same old story... by Life2Short · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Years ago I used to play Asheron's Call. In those days, Microsoft owned the game, and instead of logging directly onto the servers you had to pass through Microsoft's "Gaming Zone." This was later extended to requiring Internet Explorer to access a Microsoft Passport account to log in to the Gaming Zone so you could get to Asheron's Call. Thanks to this convoluted system, there were a LOT of connection problems that weren't addressed until Microsoft finally sold the game back to Turbine, and you could log directly onto the Turbine servers.

    Good luck XBOX Live customers, and don't hold your breath...

  2. pretending they didn't see this coming? by v1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's not like this was a SURPRISE to them. They SELL the units, the have absolute control over how many units are sold. If your netgame people say the current network can support 80,000 users, you DON'T SELL 200,000 UNITS until you have upgraded your network. (numbers fabricated but you get the idea)

    This was entirely their responsibility, and I cannot believe they did not see this coming. What it came down to is they wanted to do a money grab for the holidays so they made as many units as they possibly could, to hell with the network until we get past christmas then we'll divert resources from production to upgrade the net so they can USE the product.

    Not saying it's unexpected, just shameful is all. Nothing new there in business.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.