Microsoft Promotes Lost and the Damned Week

You know your downloadable content is huge when Microsoft gives silver members the ability to play it online for free - even if it is for a limited time. Microsoft is doing everything it can to make sure that the Lost and the Damned DLC is a success, but to be honest with you it probably doesn’t have to do all that much to hit that milestone.

The company announced today that, starting Tuesday, February 17 at 9:00 am (PST), Xbox LIVE multiplayer service usually reserved for Xbox LIVE Gold members will be completely free of charge for LIVE members while playing Grand Theft Auto IV or The Lost and Damned. Grand Theft Auto multiplayer promotion is applicable only to players of either Grand Theft Auto IV or The Lost and Damned expansion episode, and will end on Sunday, February 22 (11:59PM PST).

Naturally the blatant self promotion doesn’t end there (and why should it); this is exclusive DLC, after all. Rockstar Games and Xbox LIVE are putting on a week of special events with the chance to take on Hip Hop DJ and producer, Statik Selektah in a special Game with Fame event and a Game with Rockstar multiplayer event. Sweepstake promotions and an Xbox All Nighter will also be part of the week of activities

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned will be available for download exclusively through Xbox Live beginning February 17 for 1600 Microsoft Points ($19.99). More on this week of events can be found at www.xbox.com/lostanddamnedliveweek.

Microsoft Apologizes for Live Issues with Free Game

It’’s been a couple of rough weeks for Xbox Live users. There have been intermittent connection issues, database problems, and just about everything else under the sun going wrong. The reason? Well, according to Microsoft, it’’s all thanks to a huge number of holiday newcomers to service. And though the service has never technically been down, the folks at Microsoft aren”t happy with their performance. So, earlier today, Xbox Live Gold members were greeted with the following mea culpa from Xbox Live General Manager, 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 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!

Sincerely,

Marc Whitten
General Manager, Xbox LIVE

No word yet on if the free XBLA game will be one of the player’’s choosing or one handpicked by Microsoft. Either way, at least the company is big enough to apologize for the problems and to offer up a nice little extra to say We”re sorry.