At the same time as Microsoft tells the world that it's sold 17.7 million Xbox 360s worldwide since its 2005 launch - it is also offering Xbox Live users a free game to make up for the almost Network Rail like chaos in suffered by the service over the 'The Holidays' season.

First up, those sales figures, which we know are so beloved/hated by fan-people of all loyalties. Back in September Microsoft claimed 13.4 million consoles had found their ways into homes of gamers the world over. One SPOnGer got out his Xmas digital watch'n'calculator and managed to work out this means during September, October, November and December the company managed to shift another... 4.3 million Xbox 360s.

As comparison, Reuters quotes figures to mid-September 2007 for Nintendo Wii 13.2 million, while Sony's PS3 is said to have sold 5.6 million PS3 worldwide.

Now, aside from it being the 'The Holidays' season, we also saw Halo 3 doubling hardware sales in the UK in September, Bioware's Mass Effect also made its entrance, and the Xbox Arcade courtesied in.

Right, that's the trumpet blowing, now for the grovelling. The Xbox Live gaming service appeared in pre-ghost-Scrooge form over the 'The Holidays' period with connection problems forcing Xbox-owning to talk to their parents or... grand-parents instead of fragging their BFFs.

Xbox Live General Manager Mark Whitten has explained that "While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance."

To show just how disappointed he is, Mark has announced that all Xbox Live members will be able to freely download one game over the service. Okay, he hasn't given any details... for example we don't know if this means the same game or a choice from a wide selection of games - or even a choice from all available games. It's also the case that the offer won't be firmed up for a weeks yet. Exactly why not is not known as we go to press.

Let's hope it doesn't turn out to be as confusing as Novembers free copy of the single game Carcassone.