Victims of Call of Duty crash get Xbox Live credit of about

[chain]

Gamers who bought the bug-inducing downloadable content (DLC) pack for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360 have been credited with 7 free days of Xbox Live Gold.

 

When Microsoft posted the enhanced game update to the Xbox Live Marketplace on March 30, it made a fatal error by making the download available before the Call of Duty game itself was updated to accept the download.

 

As a result, the game crashed for hours for people who legitimately purchased the content, while Microsoft struggled to fix the problem that it had apparently never dealt with before.

 

On Monday, reports surfaced that people who purchased the DLC pack on that first day received an e-mail from Microsoft that read as follows:

 

"To thank you for your loyalty to Xbox LIVE and for buying the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package on day 1, we will extend your Gold membership for 7 days of adrenaline-pumping action with your friends on LIVE. Your account will be updated on May 1."

 

Of course, the e-mail stops short of apologizing or even acknowledging the problem. And that free 7 days is worth less than $1, so it's not exactly a big consolation to those who were afflicted by Microsoft's blunder. But it's something.

 

The game update, called "Stimulus Package," now works without a hitch and costs 1200 Microsoft Points ($15). The PS3 version of Modern Warfare 2 will also receive the pack, but only after Xbox gets it exclusively for a few months.