Games for Windows Live Goes Free

[jcap]

It seems Microsoft finally got it through their thick heads that Games for Windows LIVE was heading straight for the biggest failure next to Microsoft BOB. Unfortunately, the dollar signs in their eyes were blinding them for too long. It took over a year to see that there are no PC gamers out there who want to pay for a shit service when other services offer the same features and more for free.

Cutting to the chase, Microsoft announced today that Games for Windows LIVE will now be free. All features LIVE offered to Gold members for a subscription are now free to all silver members on the GFWL platform. They say that free multiplayer is just the beginning, but it would have been nice to have it free from the beginning. Maybe now this will give them a second shot at the PC gaming market that Steam is eating up, or maybe the lack of support for their titles makes this too little too late.

Again, another news post I'll have to reword at a later date. Until then, celebrate! We have won.

[Sel]

yey

[Pooky]

Well I'm glad that they did this now that I see Dawn of War II under the GFW label. If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't care.

[Zeph]

Too bad it's too late for it to make any difference.

[Snowy]

Too bad it's too late for it to make any difference.

Too late for Halo 2, but not necessarily for future GFWL games.

[Ifafudafi]

That's one step. Now they need to work on actually providing proper support and optimization and kill the Vista-exclusivity shit. Then maybe I'll consider buying the 360-to-PC ports.

Maybe.

[l SINERGY l]

Hurray!... now if they'd just fix h2v...

[Zeph]

Too late for Halo 2, but not necessarily for future GFWL games.

I'm sorry, but what future GFWL titles? Last I checked, no third party developer would touch the platform and MS cut future titles that used the Live service because the current games that used it weren't going anywhere.

[Beckinsale]

Hurray!... now if they'd just fix h2v...

Agreed, I suppose it's great, never really used Live on the PC, only Xbox, but cheers to the people that did/are

[TheGhost]

XP SP 2 is also supported, not just Vista. The Vista requirement was for DX10. It also seems they are planning on making some overhauls to the system which should come to light fall/late 2008. It should be interesting to see if this platform makes a recovery or not considering the failure of its launch titles.