Games for Windows Live Now Free

Games for Windows Live Now Free

Techtree News Staff, Jul 23, 2008 0852 hrs IST

From GameFest 2008, comes news of DirectX 11 and of Games for Windows Live going free

Cnet/Crave reports that Microsoft will now offer all aspects of the Games for Windows Live service for free. The new policy was shared at the GameFest 2008 conference. Additional news talk of a new digital distribution service from Microsoft called the Games for Windows Live Marketplace. It's not a stretch to imagine this new initiative to closely mirror the Xbox Live Marketplace offering on the Xbox 360 console. Clearly, Microsoft plans to extend its gaming and entertainment store to its PC operating system. It would be interesting to learn just how much of the Xbox Live Marketplace will come over to the PC -- would this include their content deal with Netflix, NBC Universal and others, one wonders.

Bringing up the rear is news of DirectX 11. Yes, it is official, and it will include support for GPU programming: "The final, commercial release will be available for both the next version of Windows and for Windows Vista at the time that the next version of Windows becomes available", said Kevin Unangst, Microsoft's Senior Director of Global Gaming, in an interview to Crave.