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Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 3 Ships!

Tim Grube — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:20:01 -0500

Namco Bandai Games announced today that Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 3 has been shipped to North American retailers for Nintendo DS.

Based on the popular virtual pets, gamers can run over a dozen shops with adorable Tamagotchi pals. Team up with fan-favorite Tamagotchis: Violetchi, Mametchi, Memetchi or Kuchipatchi, and get behind the counter of more than 12 different stores.

Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 3 is a great way to teach the responsibility of running a business in a way that everyone can enjoy, said Todd Thorson, Director of Marketing and Public Relations at NAMCO BANDAI Games America. Its fun mini-games, distinct art style and atmosphere will bring a smile to anyones face.

Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 3 is rated E for everyone by the ESRB and carries a suggested retail price of $29.99.

Microsoft to Offer Free Live Arcade Game to Those Affected by Service Hiccups

Shiva Stella — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 00:18:19 -0600

Just in case you missed this posting over at Larry Hyrb's blog or at Xbox.com, Microsoft has confirmed that Live's poor holiday service was indeed due to a record-setting number of gamers online simultaneously and that the company will be offering compensation for all Live members (that be silver and gold) in the form of a free Live arcade game.

While it's not a couple hundred Marketplace points or a free week of service, at least it's proper acknowledgment of the issue that includes some kind of compensation. Here's the full message from Microsoft's Marc Whitten, General Manager of Live:

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 (January 2) 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!

Microsoft to Compensate Gold Members for Live Downtime?

Shiva Stella — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:13:09 -0600

Regarding those nasty Xbox Live issues that gold members have been experiencing since Christmas,Torrent Davis over at The Bitbag recently confirmed that he'd been in contact with a source at Microsoft who stated that "we [Microsoft] will definitely be doing something for our Gold memebers that weren't able to get online over the last week."

This is interesting in that it would mark the first time Microsoft has compensated members for Live "issues".

Sounds spiffy considering that 360 owners have been complaining that they have basically been paying Microsoft in order to beta test their Xbox Live service. Of course, gamers who were frustrated in their attempts to play Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3 online could have just played other games, but why pay for a service if you don't even get to use it for the games you want?

The good news is that Live seems to have stabilized some.

Experiencing Call of Duty 4, Halo 3 Connection Issues Since Christmas?

Shiva Stella — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:33:00 -0600

Just on the off-chance that any of you are Xbox 360 gamers eager to relax over the holiday break with a nice match on Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4, better be prepared for some "intermittent issues." According to Microsoft's support page as of 7:30p.m. CST:

Status:
Up and running

Users may experience issues performing transactions dependent on Windows Live ID availability including but not limited to Xbox 360 and Zune account creation, renewal, recovery, all DMP transactions, and logging into or creating Windows Live ID accounts. Users will experience intermittent issues including but not limited to: Tournaments, Storage Downloads, Gamer Tile, Statistics through Arbitration, Match Making, and Messaging. Additionally, Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 users may experience issues joining matches or posting statistics. Customer Support may also experience issues referencing customer data. We are aware of the issue and are currently working to resolve it. We apologize for any inconvenience.

In other words, players are reporting issues with forming parties, hosting/finding matches, gamertag recovery, and just about any feature that a person paying $50 a year for would want - though the chat function is still operating superbly.

You can check on the status of the "issue" at Microsoft's support page or check on some forum posts (1; 2) if you're in the mood for some quality entertainment provided by Xbox fanboys who seem to share the opinion that we should all get down on our knees and thank Microsoft for allowing us to give them money.

We'll keep you updated on Live's status as Microsoft addresses the issue; current word has it that the problems should be resolved by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.

As an aside, I imagine that Xbox 360's Live issues combined with Nintendo's Wii shortage have made Sony very happy recently...

Update: As of 9:30p.m. CST the Live status now reads:

Users may experience issues logging into Xbox Live. We are aware of the issue and are currently working to resolve it. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Read: everything is still screwy and players are still having problems with Live, finding/joining games, staying connected, and so on. However some gamers are able to play other online titles, like Gears of War, while they wait on Microsoft to fix the issue, so if you're bored out of your mind during your break it's a possible option.

Update Update: It seems that things have stabilized at least a smidgen on Live since yesterday, but don't be shocked when you encounter various Live problems. As of 2:40p.m. CST , 12/30, the status now reads:

Users may experience intermittent issues logging onto Xbox Live. Our engineers are continuing to investigate and are working to resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Apparently Microsoft is still searching for whatever is causing the problem so they can fix the issue. Normally this is when I'd head over to Larry Hyrb's blog for an insider view on the chaos, but unfortunately Major Nelson's site is down...