In an administrative blunder making the kind of headlines Microsoft definitely wants to avoid, the company overpaid severance benefits to certain laid off workers. TechCrunch got its hands on a letter from the company to one laid-off employee asking for repayment and offering a sincere apology. Microsoft has confirmed the authenticity of the letter, acknowledged more than one individual was impacted and declined to comment further, calling it a "private matter."

Some 56 percent of worldwide Xbox 360 owners paid for a Gold subscription to Xbox Live last February, according to documents reviewed by Joe Tartakoff at the Seattle P-I. Buyers of the console are given a free Silver subscription; the Gold -- which is required to play multi-player games online and participate in the new Netflix on-demand service -- costs $4.15 to $7.99, depending on how many months are purchased at once. The figure is interesting because it appears to be the first time Microsoft's paid-subscription rate has been quantified. But, as Tartakoff notes, the figures are a bit stale. What would be more interesting is to see the change in paid subscriptions since Microsoft added the Netflix service last fall as part of its New Xbox Experience revamp. Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, said in an interview last month that the Netflix deal drives Gold subscriptions. Earlier this month, the company announced that more than 1 million people were using Netflix to stream movies and television shows on-demand via their Xbox 360s.