Microsoft Offers Free XBLA Game for Xbox Live Issues

Microsoft has revealed that they will be compensating gamers that suffered Xbox Live issues during the holidays.  The problems stemmed for an extraordinarily large number of Live users online simultaneously (presumably trying out their Christmas presents) which caused problems with online play such as creating Windows Live accounts or matchmaking.  Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 users found themselves having problems joining matches and posting stats.  Microsoft immediately fessed up to the problems, but claimed that the problems were not widespread.

However, in compensation for the gamers that were inconvenienced throughout the holidays, Microsoft has decided to offer them a free Xbox Live Arcade game.  No official word yet on what (or which) game(s) will be offered, but details should be forthcoming shortly.

The following is the official letter from Microsoft’s General Manager of Xbox Live, Marc Whitten.

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 (January 2) 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!