Microsoft apologized, gives away free games
Microsoft has apologised for the glitches that hit its Xbox Live online game system during the Christmas break. The software firm said it was “disappointed” with its performance and promised a free downloadable game to all users as recompense. It said the problems had been caused by a surge of people signing up and using the gaming service. Microsoft said the growth in new users had been driven by sales of top titles such as Mass Effect and Halo 3. The Xbox Live service suffered an ongoing series of problems during the holiday season. The discussion boards and forums of many gaming news websites have been filled with gamers complaining that they could not sign up or get on to the service. Writing on the Major Nelson website, Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox Live, apologised for the “intermittent” service.
“While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance,” he said. He added the outages were driven by a record-breaking number of new members signing up, and the biggest ever number of concurrent users. Most Xbox Live members pay an annual fee to use the service. As a reward for their patience, Mr Whitten said all eight million members would get access to a full Xbox Live Arcade game free of charge. Details of how to claim this game would be made available in the next few weeks, he explained. The downloadable games on the Xbox Live Arcade typically cost up to $20 (£10). Thank God I didn’t decide for XboX but got Wii instead…
Source: BBC
About bloody time M$ gave us something back, please give us all Rez HD once they release it…
Hey that is good customer service. A big problem happened, they resolved the issue and they give you a free game as a way of saying sorry.
If u even can call that a Real game!
could be worse…. my xbox360 could get the boringdisease from my Wii sitting over in the corner gathering massive amounts of dust :/
no worries though, Wii will be back in full force for smash bros
A free Xbox live title. LOL!! Ill just add to this to other free stuff Ive downloa….uhh I mean purchased from Microsoft.. LOL!!
doesn’t wii have 100% online downtime? lol
the issue is not resolved, microsoft suck
Thanks a bunch M$… too little, too late…
How’bout apologizing to us who have been put up with windows for years (since 95 for me) and countless of other “malware” from M$… I say screw XbugS, get a life or get a WII.
Ima go get me life after this post, maybe WII too
2 weeks, i have sat at my 360 twiddling my thumbs unable to connect due to the 100’s of thousands of users, this is not acceptable compensation but a start, its ridiculous we pay such a big company so much money for an amateur service.
Oh yes!! Metal Slug here i come…..
Lucky for the 360’s. PS3 rocks
@6 - I am suprised you managed to get past the spam protection question!, Rez is a classic! One of the best games to come out on the Dreamcast, now we get a chance to play it in HD…
Hmm they couldn’t handle the the signups. It is the holiday season, people get gifts like these how could they have been soo naive? Poor market research by MS.
wii sucks balls, i mean who wants to constantly move around when playing a game? ihave all 3 consoles and wii is played least, followed by xbox because of its noise and having to pay for LIVE, ps3 rocks the world right now IMHO.
hey Martin where can i keep updated with this info? whats your source, i see the ‘bbc’ as in british news network?
@ 15
check out digg.com.
i agree with 14 wii sucks, not as bad as he describes but it’s a joke compared to 360. I can’t comment on ps3 I haven’t seen it yet. As for the free mini game, that’s a sweet deal, one of the games I play when on break from gh2/gh3 is GEOMETRY WARS which is KIKA$$!
@ number 15, BBC as in British Broadcasting Corporation. Go to http://bbc.co.uk then technology to be updated with the info.
they should throw in a free month aswell.
emok1d did you say ps3 rocks, what are you living in denial.PS3 is the biggest waste of money around and there so called awesome exclusives (heavenly sword and drakes fortune)are both games you finish in under 10 hours and have no reason to ever play again. You can find most of the same games only with better online support for the 360.
PS3 sucks the big one.
as for the wii my grandma likes chickenshoot.lol
hey martin u got wii?????????
howz it?????????
do you like playing onit????????
what games do you have???????
is playing on wii fun?
is your wii modded?
do we get pirated games on wii??
is it worth buying??????
how are the graphics??????/
which among the top 3 consoles would you recommend???????
thanks.
so wait what game is free and where can i get it? it doesnt say on this post
thanks !!!!
lolol im emo @21
hi martin lol pls can i s_ck you pls
Consoles blow, PC is far superior. Particularly for the never ending supply of free games available;)
They’re only doing this to try and regain some customer allegance (obviously). So we’ll be able to download a free arcade game. Whup-de-fVckin-doo. How many people will be made aware of this and how many will actually download one. Anyway, I’m sure Bill won’t lose any sleep over losing a bit of spare change.This is just one of many problems with the 360. I’m glad I’ve decided to sell mine, after it’s rings of death are fixed (for the 2nd time). I’ll stick to Sony from now on.
How is a PC superior? It costs you more for less if gaming is what you want. (…and xbox’s ARE PCs…).
Actually, it was a DDos attack that took the service down.
http://www.primotechnology.com/2008/01/03/recent-xbox-live-issues-may-be-result-of-attack/
They’re covering their butts on this one. Who’d have thought Live could be DDos attacked, and so mercilessly?
Who was the leading authority on online services again? Microsoft? Microsoft, as in the makers of the XBox? And they messed up (again)? My oh my…
“Thank God I didn’t decide for XboX but got Wii instead…”
Same here. Wii is a bit shallow for hardcore gamers, but for the occasional game it’s the nr. 1 system. And since I’m not a hardcore gamer (I’ve got a life and I work), the Wii makes more sense to me. And Wii online services always work…
Wii sucks a fat one…….
Sony fan since day 1, bought the PS3…..SOLD THE PIECE OF CRAP, also a big Nintendo fan, bought the Wii, SOLD THE PIECE OF CRAP, decided to try Xbox360, it has it’s flaws but is by FAR the best next gen system around, Sony just doesn’t have the backbone any more, #1 NO GAMES (hello people thats what we buy the system for), #2 Grand theft auto was put on hold because the PS3 version was so hard to develop for, the Xbox version HAS BEEN DONE (Cmon Japs support the american game publishers, #3 you know there are problems when the Grandfather of Sony left the company, Sony’s washed up the new winner is MICROSOFT!!!!
Wiicked!
Im fat and lazy, using the wii makes me move so i dont like it
Quote
“Thank God I didn’t decide for XboX but got Wii instead…”
We’re gonna get Space Giraffe as compensation!
I’m jesting, of course!
the should give me a new 360 elite cause the normal one keeps (5th time) breaking down on me, and im sure millions (thousands) others!!!!!!
guess im gonna buy me a ps3:(
I’m really pissed how instead of a refund, they throw a trashy game that no one will play out for free. This is very disappointing.
Our family has both a PS3 and a 360 elite. Don’t ask why. I bought the PS3 first at launch and it does not get much use. It is a nice bookend though. The 360 gets daily use (Halo 3, Rock Band, Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, etc.). There just seems to be more of what we like to do on the 360 and the menu system flows so much better than on the PS3.
The PS3 may be more future proof with all the capacity of using Blu-ray for games, compared to DVD-9 for 360. And as far as games go, many major titles appear on both systems anyway. The 360 is much louder than the PS3 and seems to run much hotter.
So my final score (I know, you don’t really care), XBox 360 gets an 8 out of 10, the PS3 gets a 7 out of 10. Personally, I give the PC a 9 , but thats just me.
I wish Sony would give something back to all who paid the high cost of the PS3 and are still waiting for something to brag about. Warhawk = crap, Lair = crap, Home = ??, oh yea, where the hell is Home?
As for the Wii, I can’t comment. I don’t own one, but then why would I. I’m not 7 or 70.
Just kidding, it appears to be a nice system for the price, but just not what our family is interested in.
There’s my 2 cents for anyone thinking of buying a PS3 or a 360. I am sure I confused the heck out of some. Sorry for the long post.
Free game, Whey!
i gotta check that out, Xbox 360 is fun, but alot of problems hopefully M$ will fix their mistakes, Wii rules too, good workout if you play like you mean it, exhausted the hell out of myself playing a boxing game for a few hours, sadly many of the wii games coming out get like 3-5 out of 10, but there are some good ones, i got like 2 games for it so far, but soon as the wallet it filling up and good games arrive there will be more 
Ouch! Warners to Go Blu-Ray-Exclusive
Warner Bros. Entertainment has decided it will release films only on the Blu-ray format, the company said Friday.
That means it will stop issuing films playable using the competing HD-DVD technology.
Sony Corp. makes the Blu-ray, while the HD-DVD is backed by Toshiba Corp. and Microsoft Corp.
Warner will stop issuing HD-DVD movies at the end of May, the company said.
While a win for Sony, both sides have had victories in the technology fight.
In August, Paramount Pictures Corp. and DreamWorks Animation SKG backed HD-DVD.
In November, Sony head Howard Stringer said the Blu-ray was in a “stalemate” with the competing HD-DVD format.”It’s a difficult fight,” he said.
I know I’m gonna get hell for this, but PS3 is a sorry system, not enough good games (Sony had God of War, Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, and Final Fantasy, all of which they lost to other consoles… in other words they’re losing all the “fan” games, whether they’re great or not that’s another story!!!) The Wii is cool, I think it’s a great idea to make people move while playing a game, causing the fat asses to lose weight, yet the Xbox 360 is the one that has allowed me to do wonders in gaming… PC games truly aren’t that great, especially since they’re both owned by Microsoft, they’re usually released for Xbox first, so there’s my two cents…
“PC games truly aren’t that great, especially since they’re both owned by Microsoft, they’re usually released for Xbox first, so there’s my two cents…”
ROFL…
Hey dude, PC games are NOT owned by microsoft. And to all kiddies who think consoles have an edge over the PC all i can say is that i’ll be playing your exclusive games with emulators and you’ll never be able to play the best PC games. And the best PC games usually can’t be ported to consoles because console commands are made for arcade type of games.
Someone said consoles are cheaper. Well, not anymore they are not. I can keep a computer for years doing only small upgrades wich are a lot less than a console costs and do a major upgrade (for a PS3 price) every 4 years or so. Meanwhile all games are PC compatible while your consoles get discontinued and you have to buy the “next generation” thingy.
Plus, with PCs you can basically get any game you want very easily for free. Not so with console games wich are a pain to get or you have to pay for.
@costa, you’re a r3tard.
Consoles are probably the only way to avoid Microsoft domination in the gaming world. Just one question; how many PC games do you play outside a Microsoft platform (read Windows)?
Claiming that emulators actually work is just stupid (and those that do work need much more resources).
PC gaming is at least twice as expensive.Cheap upgrades don’t and never will exist.
As for your noobish porting comment, it’s almost the same platform using the exact same code, their’s no porting involved.
I don’t know if this was previously said so bare with it. The Wii also had issues over the holiday’s. Of course there were going to be some issues. Sales of all consoles were up and there were surges. Plane and simple. Oh PS3 had no issues because its sitting on the selfs at Wallies World and Game Slop! Come on people wake up! This is not 2030 it’s only 2008.
@42
Listen noob, i’m not simply talking about XBOX here but all platforms. If you believe that there is no porting today maybe you should read something about it before demonstrating ignorance. What you’ve just said makes me wonder if you actually know what porting is. And why should i care about Microsoft dominating the market or not? If they do it is because their stuff actually gives me what i want.
I don’t know but it seems that now you’re going off your mouth about linux and such “alternatives”. Oh well…
“PC gaming is at least twice as expensive.Cheap upgrades don’t and never will exist.”
Last 4 years i’ve spent around 1000€ total in gaming intertainment and this includes all upgrades i’ve done and i’ve got every game i want to play (and that is probably more than 200 in 4 years). Giving that every crap game for a console is some 50€ how exactly am i losing money? 1000€ is something like 20 games… I download about that almost every month. And guess what… Every game i want is just a few clics away.
“Just one question; how many PC games do you play outside a Microsoft platform (read Windows)?”
ROFL… PC games outside a windows platform? Why should i even try to fiddle with Linux (or other even more obscure OS) when windows gives me everything i want without the slightest problem? Oh, and by the way, windows was free too…
“Claiming that emulators actually work is just stupid”
Claiming that they don’t means one of two things, either you have a toaster for computer or you don’t know how to make them work. There are tons of emulators for about every console made. Those who do not exist yet will in the future. And given that every game goes to PC (and those which don’t usually don’t really matter anyway) emulators are not fundamental.
And about name calling that’s pretty brave and mature of you. If one of these days rlslog starts using subtraction in the SPAM protection you may have to use a calculator…
Ha ha ha …
Do I still need to reply?
You just contradicted every single thing you stated in your previous post. Grow up and do something useful with your overpriced PC.
(Stupid noobs…)
@45
I believe you may want to learn to read one of these days. Console gaming is more expensive these days than computer games. A lot more so if you pirate stuff. Care to point out what contradiction do you see?
Dude, this Martin editor is such a douche. “Thank god I got a Wii…” Yeah, thank god you did get a Wii; We don’t need more idiots in the Xbox 360 Gaming Community.
First of all, an arcade game does not typically cost $20. They are usually $5-$10. And second, why would you say something as stupid as that when Microsoft is giving us COMPENSATION for their mistakes? Get a life you Nintendo fan boy.
Anybody who thinks they are better off with a Wii has got to be somewhat delusional. Even if XBox Live Arcade has some glitches to work out I believe that I can still play a helluva lot more games on-line on my 360 than my piece of shat Wii.
costa saying pc upgrades are cheap is a load of bull tbh … your going to tell us next that you can run the latest games on your 386 now arnt you ?
for the price of a graphics card and motherboard and the rest of the needed things for the latest games will mount up to a hell of a lot more than the price of a ps3 and 360 togeather so stop with the bull
also saying it costs more if you have a console lol
if you want to play a pc game online you either get banned or you have to go out and buy the game .. what do you have to do when you want to play a 360 game online ? you have a couple of options and also a option that give you FREE online gaming for 2 days at a time if you know where to get 2 days gold trials from
do us all a favour and have fun playing tetris on high settings lol
My comments not showing up…
Since i can’t post links here is an article for people with trouble with math:
“There’s a particularly stubborn myth swirling around cyberspace any time a new console is released, especially now with the imminent release of the PlayStation 3 in Europe. As always, many console gamers and PC gamers are trying to convince one another of the superiority of their favourite gaming platform. A pet argument on the console side rings that console gaming is less expensive than PC gaming, but with the PS3’s high selling point, does that argument still ring true, or not?
I’m assuming one purchases solely an upgrade to ones existing PC, in order to have a fair comparison. This means we won’t be purchasing a keyboard, mouse, monitor, windows or computer case, because all these items are already yours if you can read this. Let’s have a look at this supposedly massive price difference now, shall we? (NOTE: These are all prices taken from a single shop, it’s possible to get these components for lower prices still, but these are definitely realistic prices!)
PlayStation 3:
Console: € 600,-
Total: € 600,-
PC:
Compatible Motherboard: € 120,-
2048MB DDR2 Memory: € 250,-
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor: € 230,-
Geforce 8800 GTS Video card: € 380,-
Good 160 GB Harddisk: € 55,-
Power Supply: € 45,-
Total: € 1080,-
So all in all, purchasing a state-of-the-art PC gaming system that can perform exceptionally in any modern game and can display upcoming multi-platform games at better quality than the PlayStation 3 costs a whopping € 480,- more than the PS3 console! Hmm, that’s actually not all that great a price difference at all…
All of the console gaming arguments I’ve seen use figures that state a good PC is 3 or 4 times as expensive as a PS3, but the above calculation shows that that’s not true, a PC system better than the PS3 isn’t even twice as expensive! Still, an impatient console gamer might have browsed by this page by accident and think he’s found a bit of research to back up his claims, the PC does come out as a more expensive system after all… That would be quite the shortsighted assumption however, because I’m not nearly done yet!
In order to use ones PS3 console or PC system to play games, one requires… games! If you’re a PlayStation 3 owner then this means going out to buy some games for your new piece of hardware. If you’re a PC game system owner however, then this means you likely already have a sizable armada of playable games available - and you will be able to download many thousands more for free, many of which are excellent games such as ‘Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory’ and ‘Savage’…
These facts alone should be ample to compensate for the price difference between a PC game system and a PS3 system, but there’s more yet to come! There is yet another price difference between PC gaming and PS3 gaming - and that is the price difference between the games themselves, something important that aught not be forgotten!
The average PS3 game costs either € 65,- or € 70,-. By contrast, a new PC game costs slightly less than € 40,-. That’s a price difference of € 30,- which means the price difference between a PS3 system and a PC game system is levelled after purchasing 16 full-price brand new games! The price difference is further skewed in the PC’s favour however, because the vast majority of PC games is not new and therefore cost far less than € 40,-. It’s not uncommon to see an absolute classic must-have PC game in stores with a mere € 5,- or € 10,- pricetag!
Yes, the vast majority of PS3 gamers won’t be purchasing 16 games in the 4-5 year lifespan of their system, but that’s more than compensated for by the fact that there’s thousands of free games for PC gamers. Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of PC gamers won’t be buying all full-priced games anyway, because they can get games later on (usually only a few months to maybe a year) for far lower prices. It takes much longer for console games to drop in price and most of the dropped ones tend to mysteriously vanish from all stores… the budget bins are always full of PC titles, not console titles!
Now there’s a single argument that console gamers tend to use to negate all these price advantages for the PC - and that is the, supposed, fact that PCs have to be upgraded. I’ve heard oh so many times that a PC cannot last for more than one or maybe two years at most, before one has to upgrade it’s video card, which is an expensive € 300,- or more undertaking!
Let me reveal a secret to anyone who thinks in the above manner: you are wrong! A PC can easily last just as long as the average console system, namely 4 to 5 years, before requiring an upgrade in any form. All it requires is some basic maintenance every now and then and intelligent use of ones PC!
As for my proof in these statements? Well my 3 year old PC (Athlon64 3200+, 2048 MB RAM, ATi X800 Pro) that can still play any current or upcoming game comfortably in high resolution at medium to high detail settings aught to suffice don’t you agree? I still play all the latest games (Company of Heroes, Neverwinter Nights, Oblivion, Supreme Commander (beta), etc.) and my PC can handle them all without any problems at all!
Certainly I do have to turn some settings down, perhaps leave my native resolution of 1600×1200 every now and then, but is that really so troublesome? No, at least for a console gamer it most certainly shouldn’t be. After all: a console gamer plays games at the same level of graphical detail for 4-5 years until he/she purchases his/her next console. So why would it be bad if you have to turn settings down to the same level of detail as a game you bought 1 year after you got your PC? Exactly: it isn’t bad at all, in fact the games still look very pretty in a lower resolution or on medium or merely high instead of ultra high settings.
In the end only one conclusion is possible: PC gaming has become less expensive than console (or at least PS3) gaming. The system itself might indeed be more expensive, but the higher initial expenditure is made up for by means of full backward-compatibility, thousands of free games and a significantly lower price level for all new and old retail games.
I hope this little analysis proved useful to any who were doubting between upgrading their PC or purchasing a PS3, or to those who had been looking for a well-founded argument to prove that PC gaming is not all that expensive after all. “
Oh Please ……….
Costa, I apologize for the name calling but your still a 100% wrong.
It’s almost funny how you’re trying to get out of this without simply admitting you’re wrong.
So now it’s only the the PS3 that is more expensive? What about all other consoles? That’s not what you originally said in any of your previous posts … and your still wrong, I can buy a new PS3 for 350 Euro (your 600 is horribly outdated, only freaks buy them at such a high price). And NO, not all console owners have (and need) an extra intel-based PC as well. Neither do they all pay for their games (this is not the only pirate site in the world). You’re just wrong.
For the price of your upgrades, I can buy a new PC(without all the gaming gears), a new XBOX and a new Wii.
And what about all your other claims?
(Hint: do some research before making such heavy claims)
I don’t know what claims you’re talking about. The 600 € figure was the price tag on the PS3 which i used because you have microsoft phobia… It is cheaper now but that doesn’t make a dent in the argument. If you add a few more games you’ll still have a superior machine against a dated console later on.
Plus you can pick games a lot cheaper than 40€ (only not new ones).
“Neither do they all pay for their games (this is not the only pirate site in the world).”
What new generation console do you have and how many pirated games could you get for it. Let us compare with the ones i got for my PC.
“That’s not what you originally said in any of your previous posts …”
Any console will be more expensive in the long run. You are just made believe you are spending less because the initial investment is lower. Unless you don’t want to get games for it.
>I don’t know what claims you’re talking about.
1. Price comparison for all other consoles (XBOX and Wii).
2. MS doesn’t own the PC gaming world (hint: it’s not just the OS, google for the toolkits ,dev-libs, frameworks, … that are used by almost every popular PC game)
3. You also seem to suggest that you cant pirate console games.
4. I don’t know what porting means cause I stated that that one doesn’t need to do any real porting to make a PC game run on an XBOX.
>The 600 € figure was the price tag on the PS3 which i used because you have microsoft phobia… It is cheaper now but that doesn’t make a dent in the argument. If you add a few more games you’ll still have a superior machine against a dated console later on.
Huh????
Why would I have such a “microsoft phobia”?????
And why would that be a reason to lie about the cost of a PS3???
Why do you insist on making weird claims as if an illegal (downloaded) game for a game console will cost you any more than a PC game????
>Plus you can pick games a lot cheaper than 40€ (only not new ones).
So What? You already mentioned you’re not paying for them anyway.
>What new generation console do you have and how many pirated games could you get for it. Let us compare with the ones i got for my PC.
XBOX, Wii and yes, also a Windows PC; I can download/use ALL games for them.
Alright… Let us continue playing our favourite crap as it’s a weekend and i like enjoy myself and this is getting nowhere fast… Happiness for your gaming JV
Fine for me.
PS: Since when are internet discussions supposed to get anywhere
Way up there I said that PC games are owned by Microsoft… well, not exactly, but costa, you still need use a Windows PC to enjoy such games, so my argument is done… Microsoft, unless stopped by Google, will probably continue with this ridiculous monopoly, which obviously has now extended into consoles!!!
well im happy that microsoft is giving something away..i was tryin to play halo 3 and it took like 3 days trying to find the matches….so let me get one of those elites
@ 30
Gaming since the 80’s maybe you should get your facts right. GTA was not delayed because of the ps3…maybe you should stop taking what analysts guess as facts??….
Rockstar said that development on the ps3 version was a week to two behind the 360 version…Now if GTA4 was delayed for a week or two….it would of been the ps3s fault. A 6 month delay is caused by the developers and the fact they were not happy with the game
As for the Live problems and a free game. Sensible world of soccer!!
Weird, I didn’t notice a thing. Just played Burnout Paradise and some RB6 without any hitches.