Put down the pitchforks, the end (of service interruptions) is near.

Yes, Xbox Live isn't quite back on its feet — fortunately, the service is starting to improve one day at a time. By the time you read this, Xbox.com will be publishing a letter from General Manager Marc Whitten regarding the recent service interruption on Xbox Live. Luckily for you, we've got the public address for you to read verbatim:

It reads:

         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 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.

Hm? A full Xbox Live Arcade title you say?  Watch it end up being Joust (again!) Shoot, I wish Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Rexix was available, I'd pick that up in a heartbeat. Beyond that, there's not too much else I have to say on the subject. It's great to see Microsoft's continued diligence to get things back in order and offering a nice reward to all its customers throughout the globe. Protip: order more servers during the holiday season guys – now you realize just how awesome your gaming service truly is.