I just went to register a new hotmail address, so I went to www.hotmail.com, clicked on Sign Up, selected a free account, and what did I get presented with? Well, this:
Upon investigation, it looks to only be the @live.com domain at the moment and can only be accessed from a browser showing as English (US). However, if you are more than happy with an @live.com (not .co.uk, etc), then go to https://signup.live.com/newuser.aspx?mkt=en-us&revipc=US&ts=3960746&sh=fNtI&ru=http%3a%2f%2fmail.live.com%2f%3fnewuser%3dyes%26hm%3d1&rx=http%3a%2f%2fget.live.com%2fmail%2foverview&rollrs=04&lic=1 and register your address now 
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The other interesting thing to note is that you can no longer register for an @hotmail.com address, so looks like they might be moving away from that.
Update: Well, it appears the US one has gone offline now, that link now redirects to http://get.live.com/ but the UK link now works (which offers an @live.co.uk address)... So it could be that they are just cycling through the different markets at the moment. If the links go offline, then simply follow the process I did, and you might get lucky.
Update 2: Looks like even following my original steps now puts you back at the original @hotmail.com. So if you got your address, well done. If not, the wait continues I'm afraid.
SL