They'll give it to everyone. Silver members couldn't use their DLC or Arcade titles just the same.

They should just release the upcoming Street Fighter game for free.

They also don't pay for the service... we'll see, though.

Well it looks like were going to get a game that is already out on XBLA. I was listening to Major on the Engadget podcast, and all signs point to that from what he said. They even said what if people already own the game kind of like Carcassonne, he didn't really have a response to that. I think it stinks they should give us a new game, this way no one gets screwed over.

Its confirmed that both silver and gold will get it.

What's wrong with just giving us 400 points and letting us pick, hmmm?

Fixed

I guess the only reason they wouldn't want to do that is to make sure you got an XBLA game and not some Rock Band DLC.

Cops? like....Cops? Bad Boys Bad Boys? Why is that on G4? Is there no truth in televisional advertising or nomenclature anymore? [/rhetoricalquestion]

I am definitely in the "give us points" camp. It would truly suck if they offered a game that was already offered for free, however, if they pick any specific game or games, odds are someone has already purchased that game or games and wouldn't get a benefit about that. If they aren't giving points, then I would think they could check their records and either give one of the X least purchased games (so more people could get it, of course, then they'd hear "They're giving us a crappy game like Screwjumper", even though almost everyone could take advantage of that offer) or one of the X most purchased games (because that imply it's a popular game, and whoever doesn't already have it would most likely like it or at least appreciate it....then again, they'd hear "I already own that game!") I give them credit for trying to make up for the crappy performance of Live after Christmas, but I almost think this is a lose-lose situation for them, they're going to be out money, and no matter how they do it (unless they just give points), a vocal minority will not be satisfied.

And yeah, though I haven't had any problems with the Live/activation/DRM of games (yet), I think it's awfully restrictive.

Honest question. What is their incentive to give you anything? Seriously... no one is going to leave XBox Live because of the outage.

Because they said they are...? I'm just offering another option that doesn't leave anyone out, can be used by every XBL member, and doesn't require background checks to figure out which game(s) to give to whom.

I know that they said it. My (admittedly obtuse) point is that there is a quite a bit of speculation about how to implement this in a fair and equitable way. There's no reason for MS to do anything other than just give everyone MAD TRACKS (or similar title).

The simplest way to do this would be to offer up an unreleased title for free.

You are forgetting that even Silver members PAY for the arcade downloads. When you are dealing with DRM and a console that is prone to the issues the 360 has been, it's not going too far to think that this affected Silver members just as much.

Being generous, the service was down for 3 weeks. That's a prorated value of about 3.50. The arcade games are on average $10. So even with the assumption that every member silver or gold has 2 XBLA games, you are looking at a loss of 23.50 vs 20 which comes out to about a loss of 15% more for gold than silver. So if you want extra compensation it comes out to about 280 pts of value. At that point isn't it a bit over the top to expect Microsoft to use the resources to enable the purchase of a few gamer picture vs. spending that time stabilizing and installing required upgrades to prevent major issues?

I'm all for someone/anyone starting up class action suits over the DRM bullshit. However, you really need to get a life if you want to start something over not being given the points for a few gamerpics.

Aren't arcade games only affected if you transferred over to a new xbox? Otherwise, disconnecting your profile from xbox live should've allowed you to play your live arcade games, right?

Yes but with a 100% failure rate, who still has their original 360?

My launch system is still alive and well. I never had an issue with my arcade games during the outages, just connecting to multi-player within games.

does it matter if you have your original hard drive? Doesnt that satisfy DRM requirements?

When (not if) it dies and it gets replaced you will have to be online to play your XBLA games. Afterwards, when (not if) there is another three week outage (three weeks, wow) you will not be able to play any of your XBLA games and you will not be able to take advantage of any DLC for disc-based games you've purchased if you can't sign on. As an added bonus, if you have other people who use your Xbox but have their own Gamertags they will never be able to play the XBLA games purchased under your Gamertag unless they are signed into your Gamertag (and signed in online) once the system is replaced. Jump in!

The DRM is tied to the system's serial number.. not the hard drive.

I did jump in and I love it, man! Jump out!

I can play all my XBLA games offline just fine on my replaced 360.

May the gods of anime and NES RPGs bathe you in hellfire & brimstone.

I think i can too. Thats why im surprised keeping the hard drive doesnt make the difference.

That's a fantastic point, I think we'll all have to look at Microsoft's DRM policy a little differently now.