Men Free Blog

Here’s your heartwarming story for the day. Microsoft has teamed up with Companions in Courage in order to bring “hundreds” of Xbox 360 kiosks to children’s hospitals across the nation, and the gaming stations have already been installed at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center of Seattle and the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, California. The customized units are “hospital-friendly” and come pre-loaded with a variety of E and E10+ rated games, Y-rated television programs, G-rated movies and the Xbox Live headset / Vision camera in order for gamers to play online. Speaking of, each kiosk is wired to a private Live network which “allows hospitalized children across the country to play games and chat” with each other. There’s no word on where the stations are slated to arrive outside of the three venues already mentioned, but those interested in broadening the reach of the endeavor can feel free to donate to the cause.

[Via OhGizmo]

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Is it Christmas again, already? Xbox.com is acknowledging what many of you probably already know, which is that Xbox Live is having some issues. The service is “up and running,” but users may experience matchmaking and voice communication issues.

Now it’s time to play the half-glass game! Glass is half-empty: Why are customers paying for a service that can’t fulfill its basic promoted functions? Broken services should be free. Glass is half-full: At least it’s happening now. It could be worse, this could still be going on next week during the GTA IV launch.

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As you may have noticed, Xbox Live has been a little wonky as of late and, according to Microsoft’s latest status update, it looks like it could stay that way for at least a little while longer. While the service itself is apparently “up and running,” it seems that anyone matchmaking or using client voice communication may “experience difficulties,” which is just a little bit more than a minor issue. No word on a full return to form just yet, but it seems that the folks in Redmond are on the case.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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