Microsoft to compensate Xbox Live Gold members?

Following a period of ongoing disruption to Xbox Live that saw many festive gamers miss out on a week of sitting in their pants shooting American teenagers online, rumours claim that Microsoft is planning a peace offering to those who pay a subscription to access the service.

Problems with the network over Christmas saw many gamers not only unable to sign into online games, but also experiencing issues accessing their online accounts and reportedly even playing single player games that access Live for things such as leaderboards and time uploads.

Xbox blogger Major Nelson recently apologised for the problems, stating: The entire Live team has been working day and night to ensure that you can have a great Live experience. While we’re not done yet, I wanted to let you know that things are getting better each hour and that no one on the team is going anywhere until the job is done.”

And now gamesblog The Bitbag has claimed that Microsoft is set to pacify enraged subscribers to the service with some freebies, quoting a Microsoft spokesperson as stating: We will definitely be doing something for our Gold members that weren’t able to get online over the last week.”