XBOX LIVE ARCADE FREEBIES – UNDERTOW

Just a quick reminder to all – starting this morning at 5am EST and running through 2:59am EST, Monday, January 28th, Chair Entertainment's Undertow will be made available for free to all Xbox Live members worldwide.

"Marc announced that all Xbox LIVE members (Gold and Silver) around the world would have access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game to download free of charge. We’re pleased to announce that beginning next Wednesday, 2:00 a.m. PST through Sunday, 11:59 p.m. PST, Xbox LIVE members worldwide can download the full version of the recent award-winning Xbox LIVE Arcade game, Undertow." – Gamerscore Blog

Microsoft has also been very clear that they are not leaving out those of you who have already purchased this title. If you've already bought Undertow, simply contact Xbox support at 1-800-4MY-XBOX during the promotional period and they will see to it that you get credited the 800 Microsoft points you spent on the game.

Regardless of what you may think of Undertow, free is still free, so I'd definitely suggest downloading this one regardless of whether or not you feel Microsoft could have chosen a better title to offer Live members to make up for all the problems of late. 

• Undertow – Product page at Xbox.com
• Undertow Free of Charge Next Week on Xbox LIVE Arcade – Gamerscore Blog 

MOORE TO BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY: I’M SORRY!

Still stinging from the can of whoop ass Xbox 360 owners and his own employees opened on him when he declared that no one cared about backwards compatibility on the 360 anymore, Peter Moore made an appearance on Major Nelson’s most recent podcast to clear up… and backtrack on the matter. Moore stated that his comments regarding backwards compatibility were misconstrued and that he assures us that Microsoft does indeed care about playing original Xbox titles on the 360.

“I want to be clear that my comments were not about ‘nobody cares.’ Of course we care, and we’re going to continue to get as close as we can to our stated target of every Xbox game being back compatible to the Xbox 360.” -Peter Moore

The oh-so-contrite Moore also stated that the next long anticipated (and apparently) much desired backwards compatibility update should be hitting Live sometime next week and would add about 20 games to the current list of 360 playable titles. While he didn’t name all the games Microsoft will be adding, he did state that both Doom 3 and Lego Star Wars would be part of that group. I do hope that ESPN NFL2K5 made the list, but since I guess Electronic Arts would probably throw a fit if it did, I don’t think we’ll be seeing that happen anytime soon.

Now lets all remember that Moore has officially stated that they plan on continuing to try and make every Xbox game playable on the 360. Why? This way was can all share a chuckle as we watch and wait months and months for the next update after this one. If we’re lucky, we may even go so far as to get some shits and giggles out of it. Check out the Major’s podcast here.

Now that I think of it, I wonder if this whole thing pissed me off so much because it was an ex-Sega executive who was saying they were going to drop support for something… not that Sega ever did something like that before or anything. You know what I’m saying. 😉