Five days after it was first discovered, the Pandora Tomorrow Xbox Live bug has been officially acknowledged by Ubisoft. "Some gamers who acquired the Xbox version of Ubisoft's critically acclaimed Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow have experienced problems using the game's online multiplayer features," said the publisher in a statement today. "Specifically, after logging onto Xbox Live and selecting the 'optimatch' function, players discovered that waiting for more than about 10 seconds on the optimatch results screen causes the game to freeze indefinitely."

　　However, Ubisoft assured gamers a patch is en route. "An auto-update has been made and is currently under approval by Microsoft," continued the publisher, who said the update should be available "in a few days."

　　In the meantime, Ubisoft is advising gamers to "take care" while using optimatch mode. "If you choose to use optimatch, don't stay more than 12 to 15 seconds in the results page," read the statement. "Choose a game quickly, or press refresh within 12-15 seconds of having results displayed." As an alternative to optimatch, Ubisoft suggests gamers use quickmatch or their friend lists.

　　Ubisoft's statement ended with a mea culpa, "We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused by frequent freezes in optimatch results. As gamers ourselves, we hope to deliver the most compelling gameplay experiences possible."