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Microsoft Giving Xbox Live Users a Free Game

Posted by Soulskill on Sun Jan 06, 2008 10:35 AM
from the angered-texans-inconsolable dept.
XBox (Games) Entertainment Games
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."
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Related Stories

[+] Xbox Live - The Christmas Zombie 160 comments
SEWilco writes "Xbox Live is not working, as mentioned 36 hours ago in an Xbox team blog. Even if you can get logged in, multiplayer matchmaking doesn't find enough players for games. For a while Zune Marketplace was also affected. At present Zune status claims 'Up and running' while Xbox Live status continues to say 'Users may experience intermittent issues logging onto Xbox Live. Our engineers are continuing to investigate and are working to resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience.' This has been been going on for days." My assumption is that this is the result of lots of new XBLA users logging in with Christmas 360s.
Submission: Xbox 360 free content thanks to Christmas outage by Anonymous Coward
[+] Microsoft Apologizes for XBL Downtime With Undertow 85 comments
The extraordinary problems that Microsoft's Xbox Live experienced over the holidays were followed up with swift promises of a free game to compensate for the frustration many users suffered. The company has followed through, and has announced that Undertow will be the free game sacrificed to mollify gamers. The game will be free to download all this week, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) and running through this Sunday. "Two weeks ago, Xbox Live GM Marc Whitten posted a letter to Live subscribers apologizing for poor performance during the holidays and promising a freebie was on the way. There are currently no plans to offer a substitute game for those who already own Undertow." Just the same, Major Nelson sent along word to 360 Fanboy that they'd 'take care of you' if you found yourself in that situation.
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  • Free Game (Score:5, Funny)

    by SirLurksAlot (1169039) on Sunday January 06 2008, @10:41AM (#21932400)

    I'm guessing the free game is going to Pong Advanced.

  • dodge the chair (Score:4, Funny)

    by kie (30381) on Sunday January 06 2008, @10:43AM (#21932414) Homepage Journal
    will it be a game of dodge the flying chair?

    don't flame me please, it was just a thought!

      • Re:dodge the chair (Score:5, Insightful)

        by beckerist (985855) on Sunday January 06 2008, @02:39PM (#21934326) Homepage
        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.

  • Problems still not resolved as of last night... (Score:5, Informative)

    by toupsie (88295) on Sunday January 06 2008, @10:43AM (#21932416) Homepage
    Last night was another terrible night of XBOX Live gaming. COD4 was unplayable online. At one point, while designated as host, my XBOX froze, unfroze, froze, unfroze and so on for 10 minutes. I couldn't even back out being host. The only way i would have been able to get control over my system was to turn it off. I didn't just to see how long XBOX Live was going to keep my XBOX 360 hostage to its poor performance while surfed for prices for SONY's PS3 gaming system. Now that nearly every major motion picture company has abandoned HD-DVD for BluRay and it appears Apple is going BluRay, the PS3 is looking to be a more desirable platform. I am really not satisfied with the response that Microsoft has put out and giving me a P.O.S. XBLA game I will never play for losing two weeks of paid service that still doesn't appear to be fixed isn't convincing me to stay with Microsoft -- not to mention the three times I have sent my XBOX 360 in because of the Red Ring of Death.

    • Same old story... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Life2Short (593815) on Sunday January 06 2008, @10:53AM (#21932500)
      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...

    • Re:Problems still not resolved as of last night... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 06 2008, @11:02AM (#21932556)
      You think that's bad? I was playing Geometry Wars last night, and FINALLY got over a million points, something I've been trying to do for well over a year.

      I scored 1.5 million points, got two achievements...

      and the leaderboard wasn't updated. It still has me at 700,000.

      Imagine if you actually made it through some CoD4 and didn't get the experience points/challenges marked done and had to start over....

      Seriously, it's been over two weeks and MS keeps saying that this stuff is fixed. I'm on my 3rd 360, and it's about to be the fourth...for as fun as its games are, MS seems determined to ensure that the 360 inconveniences its owners and push them towards the Wii and PS3.
      • Dude, I feel for you! I read about several Geometry Wars players that experienced the same issue. I didn't have to worry about losing achievements. I couldn't play long enough to achieve any.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Peil (549875)
      Got to say last night was the first time in about 2 weeks I've had a chance to even look at Live, and boy was it painful.

      Took about 10 minutes, and several dozen attempts to even get signed in, once in the whole thing was running painfully slowly. Generally not very good, especially as I was seeing lobby issues on PGR4 BEFORE Christmas.

      Looking around the forums there are a lot of guys over on PA who are maning that every live user will get the free download, and complaining that Silver members will get the

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by noidentity (188756)

      '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?

      • '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?

        Over the space of a couple of weeks?
        • A week is more than enough time. This is Microsoft we're talking about.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by ashridah (72567)
            Sure, but are you working for a company with procedures regarding purchasing? You don't just wander down to your local store and say "i'd like a rackmount server plskthx" (or even give dell/whoever a call). You tell ops "we need more capacity for ." they say "okay, we've checked all of the current vendors whom we can support, and your options for spending are X, Y or Z." You go "hm, we can afford NxX or MxZ, but Y's support contract is too small. We'll go with M because it's > N."

            5-10 days later, ops has
      • Unfortunately money can't be turned directly into servers. They need to be built and delivered, and have software loaded and configured. Give it a few weeks.

        At a guess, they might even need so many new servers that they need to hire or buy a new location and have it rigged with power and internet. That could take months.
  • I've been having hanging and intermittent logon problems for weeks now. I keep hearing they have everything under control and yet myself and friends in different geographic locations are still having problems.
  • Ha... so where's the "five nines" here?

    They should be running at least the authentication servers on a flavour of Linux like the rest of their network.

  • Class Action!? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 91degrees (207121) on Sunday January 06 2008, @10:50AM (#21932478) Journal
    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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "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?

      • Re:Class Action!? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by stuboogie (900470) on Sunday January 06 2008, @01:37PM (#21933798)
        "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????

    • Re:Class Action!? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by UbuntuDupe (970646) * on Sunday January 06 2008, @12:04PM (#21933066) Journal
      ... until it crashes the Xbox Live servers when everyone tries to download that game ;-)

      • Frogger (Score:3, Insightful)

        by westlake (615356)
        XBox Live Arcade is a collection of cheap and nasty games like Frogger which probably took a single guy 2 hours to code including drawing the sprites.

        Games like Frogger have extraordinary longevity and appeal. Talk to anyone who has sponsored a computer museum or video game expo. Its the "cheap and nasty" classics that draw the crowds.

  • Class action? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ricebowl (999467) on Sunday January 06 2008, @10:57AM (#21932522)

    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...

  • ...then why is it still happening, now?

    I don't know if it's lawsuit-worthy, but the notion that they were unprepared for an influx of new users during the holiday season is pretty much inexcusable. Besides, let's say they make the free game available tonight; we still can't sign in our profiles to get it.

    Microsoft really just had to maintain its velocity in order to handily beat the PS3. Screw-ups like this are going to send their potential customer base over to their rivals in droves. Granted, the onlin

    • 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.

  • pretending they didn't see this coming? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by v1 (525388) on Sunday January 06 2008, @11:05AM (#21932588) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • On the other hand, 80,000 users will not be online at the same time all the time - so there may be room for more but I see what you mean.

      • But that is the point. Over a holiday week as most children in the USA have off between christmas and new years, your going to have 50-75% more people online at any given time.

        But you should have the infrastructure to handle that much load anyways. What gets me is that they are still having problems a week later after all those kids have already gone back to school.

        Of course MSFT is probably running an all MSFT setup and are having problems scaling.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Omnedon (701049)
      They sold tens of thousands of units (per day) with the majority of those units being wrapped in shiny paper.

      Network services was (probably) ingnored as "crying wolf".

      Then over the course of one day all of the shiny paper comes off and then fingers are pointed at network services.

      I have seen too many instances of one division ignoring another until a scapegoat is needed.

    • Re:pretending they didn't see this coming? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AndrewM1 (648443) on Sunday January 06 2008, @11:59AM (#21933006)
      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.

  • Windows servers, what do you expect? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Marcion (876801) on Sunday January 06 2008, @11:27AM (#21932742) Homepage Journal
    TFA says that Microsoft 'was "disappointed" with Xbox Live's performance'

    Well it should blame the server software vendor for the lack of concurrency ... oh it's Microsoft.

  • Live? or not.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Endo13 (1000782) on Sunday January 06 2008, @11:29AM (#21932754)
    Maybe now people will see why having all your online PC games tied to a MS Live service is a terrible idea.

      • Yes, because other services never have technical issues.
        Because when one of my online service_S_ goes down, i still have tons of others.
        • That just means that it's a bad idea to have all your games tied into one service, period (which I agree with, not that it's a bad idea to have all your games tied into an MS service (which is only part of the larger truth).

  • tsk tsk tsk.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 3seas (184403) on Sunday January 06 2008, @11:32AM (#21932778) Homepage Journal
    ...a great promotion is to fail and blame it on popularity abundance.

    Do we have any examples of high user load being successfully maintained?

  • In Other News: Sony says... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jackie_Chan_Fan (730745) on Sunday January 06 2008, @11:42AM (#21932864)
    "Our network works just fine... please somebody use it"

  • He's full of crap. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tgd (2822) on Sunday January 06 2008, @11:53AM (#21932940)
    These problems started two weeks before the Christmas holidays. In my case on the first reboot after the winter software update was installed.

    They're making excuses. It has nothing to do with Christmas gifts.
  • WEAK MINDED FOOLS JOIN IN CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT Jan 6, 2008. A bunch of simpering idiots caught unaware by overloaded servers were today taken by ambulance to local hospitals in various locations around the U.S. The idiots were all suffering from mental breakdowns brought on by online game server failures and overloading at various Microsoft data centers around the country. "I was just playing my game and, um, it just suddenly locked up on me!" ranted Mike Hunt of Birdflip, Arkansas, "and those Microsoft bastards wouldn't even answer the phone when I called! I was, like, FREAKING OUT and they wouldn't answer the phone! It was horrible and I pee'd my pants because I was on the phone for so long. They deliberately WOULDN'T ANSWER!" After being sedated, a Microsoft Xbox 360 controller was pried from his left hand. Mr. Hunt is recovering slowly at Rapeme Medical Center outside of Little Rock where he was airlifted after the local medical clinic facilities in his hometown of Birdflip proved inadequate to the task. It is unclear whether Mr. Hunt's medical insurance will cover the cost of the air ambulance service. Quoting Mr. Hunt's attorney, Don I. Cheatem, "We'll sue Microsoft for the air ambulance costs too. The devils in Redmond won't get away with this. It's just a simple computer game and now my client is in the hospital. Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves. I've seen these kinds of products before. Remember the Erector Set? All those little kids who skinned their knuckles when their screwdrivers slipped during kit assembly? Right! We got those A.C. Gilbert bastards too! Imagine the nerve of those people suggesting in court that fun science, physics and chemistry education could ever take precedence over the preservation of perfect 9 year old knuckles." When pressed further, both Mr. Cheatem and fellow attorney Ramy Olbutt engaged in the class action law suit being assembled in Little Rock, stated for the record that online gamers are "very delicate beings and after long sessions at the computer when they should actually be outside getting fresh air or at least focusing their eyes on objects more than 18" away for a few minutes, things can get kind of tense. Microsoft knows this and must be forced to take steps to protect itself from all of the simpering weak-minded idiots and all of the scheming, calculating con artists. The best way to do that is to make every product perfect. We just don't understand why Microsoft refuses to do that." Microsoft lawyers were unavailable for comment. However, a long-time receptionist at Microsoft's central administration stated confidentially that, "These dizzy morons are all on crack if they think they're going to get a quick settlement and get paid off to shut up. Our lawyers will wrap these jack-offs up with briefs, warrants, affidavits, hearings, examinations for discovery and every piece of legal paperwork imaginable for the next ten years. If I was one of those morons I might just consider dropping this whole thing and stop buying or playing Microsoft products. It will take money out of Microsoft's pockets, keep money in the morons' pockets, and they can try their luck with other games and servers offered by other companies. GEEZ, what's the big deal? Those morons have just bought into a world of stress and aggravation. It's just not worth it." -33-

  • As if they were the only ones with trouble... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kjella (173770) on Sunday January 06 2008, @12:03PM (#21933056) Homepage
    On Christmas day a friend of mine had invited me over to play Bubble Bobble on his Wii, he was going to buy and download it on VC. He spent forever getting thrown out again and again trying to buy some Wii points, and then again trying to access the game library. It finally worked but it was not a very fun experience. Bubble bobble was though, but nothing beats the old version we knew on C64. At any rate this seems more serious but I think everyone's servers take a hit at Christmas. It's the console version of slashdotting, all the kids who got their console for Christmas coming online all at once.

  • Daily statistics of down time XBOX-live (Score:4, Informative)

    by cemaykan (1213770) on Sunday January 06 2008, @12:04PM (#21933072)
    I am tracking each day(every 10 minutes) the status of xbox live, and creating statisical images, this shows the biig picture on how "live" xbox-live actually is :) http://www.acddv.com/ [acddv.com] Also these statistics are available for the public as-well Cem Aykan

  • SLA? (Score:5, Informative)

    by HockeyPuck (141947) on Sunday January 06 2008, @12:17PM (#21933184)
    When you buy a XBOX and sign up for XBOX Live, is there a SLA (Service Level Agreement) that guarantees uptime/accessibility? So under what grounds would you be able to file a class action lawsuit?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by MrJynxx (902913)
      SLA's are generally created between the internal technology group and the internal users(ie. the business). Now I haven't read through the agreement but i can almost guarentee you there is no mention of guarenteed uptime for xbox live.

      Also it's considered a binding contract according to the ITIL definition of service level management for services provided to *external* clients (ie, everybody who uses xbox live). So that is probably why they're giving away a free game in order to avert the class action sui

  • Way to go folks! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Quiet_Desperation (858215) on Sunday January 06 2008, @03:47PM (#21934882)
    Yeah! Enrich some more lawyers who, in a more sane society with fewer whiny bitches, would be sweeping streets. Instead, they find enough rubes to sign up for a class action suit. The company gets a tiny slap. The rubes get a $1 coupon. The lawyers get to snort coke off hooker's breasts in the back seat of their 7-series. That solves what, exactly? It's a scam created by the legal industry and enabled by their buddy lawyers in government.

    Can we maybe start reserving the whole class action thing for, oh, I dunno, toxic waste dumping, or something like that?

  • Go to the source, article is plagiarized (Score:4, Insightful)

    by daVinci1980 (73174) on Sunday January 06 2008, @08:28PM (#21937244) Homepage
    Honestly, the author took this posting [xbox.com] 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 [xbox.com], 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.

    • It's just a gaming console

      The basic idea of money is that one dollar is just as good as another. If the customers paid for something they didn't get, it doesn't matter what was being bought, they have the right to be compensated.

      • The basic idea of money is that one dollar is just as good as another. If the customers paid for something they didn't get, it doesn't matter what was being bought, they have the right to be compensated.

        While the notion of getting a free game (as long as it isn't Yaris) as compensation for network troubles is a good one, and is good for public relations, if you read the EULA there is no guaranteed level of serice for Live. They are doing this to save good will, but they don't have to. Because of this I

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by mangu (126918)

          And Microsoft is giving them a free game

          I said a dollar is as good as any other, but a game isn't necessarily as good as any other. FTFA, "Whitten stopped short of identifying the game or when, exactly, it would be available". If I paid for a service I would want exactly that, not a game as a replacement, no matter the game's price.

          Besides, considering that Microsoft is offering a free download, they are giving away nothing but some downloaded bytes, which their crappy service should have provided in the fi

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Kalriath (849904)

            Besides, considering that Microsoft is offering a free download, they are giving away nothing but some downloaded bytes, which their crappy service should have provided in the first place. It's not as if they were having the expense of printing a DVD or something like that

            No, they're giving you something you would otherwise not have received without paying for it. Just because it's downloaded, does not mean that it's value is zero. And no, their "crappy service" should [i]not[/i] have provided those particular bytes to you in the first place, not without paying extra.

            To Microsoft, there is a very real cost involved in providing you a free game - if you ever took economics, you would have learned about "Opportunity Cost" - where basically giving you the game costs them the

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by KillerBob (217953)

      3. Xbox live is one of the few services that actually has a customer service line. IN THE US. Your dell, dude, doesn't even have that.

      Psst.... Yes they do. well, not in the US. But in Canada. All XPS technical support for North America is done out of a call center in Ottawa, Ontario. That's for the US and Canada, in both English and French, Spanish is done out of Panama. Likewise, for the business line of products... that is Optiplex, some Dimension, Vostro, and Latitude systems, it's all done in NA.

      Otherwi

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