Xbox Live users who were affected by the recent outage to Microsoft's Cloud Saved Games service will get one month of free extension to Xbox Live's Gold Membership.

Xbox Live's Cloud Saved Games allows Gold members to store saved games online on Xbox Live servers, and allows users to play the game from where they left off on a different console. The recent outage hit Xbox Live on Friday, Dec. 28.

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Gaming Web site Joystiq reported the disruption in Xbox Live services on Dec. 28, and confirmed that the glitch also caused problems in online streaming service on the console, including HBO Go, Hulu Plus, and Netflix. Members affected by the outage were unable to access saved games in the cloud over the weekend and instead received an error reading '0x807b0198'. 

The service was restored on Dec. 31 around 3 a.m. ET. Alex Garden, general manager of Xbox Live, said in a statement that "it took longer than we expected to get back to full performance as we needed to ensure the integrity of everyone's game saves."

"Whether you couldn't access your game saves for a couple of hours or a couple of days, we sincerely apologize for the delay and inconvenience. We will be automatically applying a one-month extension to the Xbox LIVE Gold memberships of everyone who was impacted. We can assure you we'll also be doing a thorough post mortem to help prevent this from happening again," Garden added.

Xbox Live is a very popular online service in the U.S. that continues to grow year after year. A U.S. user, on an average, spends 84 hours a month on Xbox Live, which reflects how important the Xbox Live service is for Microsoft, as the software giant frequently adds new features and services to Xbox Live.

Losing a saved game could be a massive headache, mainly if it results due to the actions of the company a user subscribed to. Realizing the negative impact of the outage on its subscribers, Microsoft quickly reacted to and attempted to satisfy users with an additional free month of Xbox Live membership.

Members do not need to contact Microsoft as it said that it "knows exactly who was affected" and will automatically add the credit.

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