Throughout last night Microsoft’s technical types were busy trying to fix the issue with the Crackdown Halo 3 download issue. Microsoft’s Major Nelson is now reporting that the problem has now been fixed, allowing the hordes of anxious fans access to the multiplayer beta. In compensation for the delays, the beta has been extended by four days to June 10th, which seems like a fair deal.

Although Crackdown users are now able to begin the download and get in the game, there are apparently a large number of Rule of Three (and other) contest winners who are yet to receive the download codes they were expecting. The various delays are causing tempers to run hot, which seems a shame given that this is a beta and, while the main focus of the operation is to test the strength of the multiplayer servers and help Bungie perfect level balancing, etc, Microsoft is obviously learning important lessons about delivering beta content to such a large number of users in this way.

The huge popularity of this beta undoubtedly helped to boost sales of Crackdown (even though it was a decent game in its own right) and Microsoft will probably use the promise of similar beta passes as a sales motivator in the future. Now that this experiment has proved successful, we can probably expect a smoother transition next time.

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