Xbox Live for PC 'free'?
Shane Kim talks Silver and Gold
The latest news in from US site 1UP.com sees Microsoft Game Studios Corporate Vice President Shane Kim revealing that the forthcoming Xbox Live offering for the PC / Windows Vista could be "free". Like Live on the 360 console, the suggestion is that Microsoft might opt for two flavours, like Gold and Silver, restricting access to certain features to non-paying subscribers. It is implied that such an option might help the new multiplayer service compete with existing free offerings on the competitive PC platform
"Not all customers have to pay for Xbox Live on Xbox 360, in the same way you're going to have a similar approach when we bring Live over to Windows. Those details are going to be announced pretty shortly. We have big value offering to customers because we can create an integrated Live experience across platforms," Kim told the website. "We do recognize that, unlike the Xbox 360 environment, there's existing competition in the PC online space. So we have to take that into account as we think about how we're going to structure our services, what they'll pay for and what they won't."
Of course, on the 360 Silver membership doesn't allow you to enjoy the full multiplayer features of Gold membership, but such a feature would be pretty much crucial to Live winning over users of other services on the PC, where the likes of Xfire and GameSpy hold significant sway. It is therefore unclear how MS will organise Live on the PC at this point.
"In the Xbox world when we created Xbox Live, there was no other option. We're sort of creating it as we go, we established that model and that framework. As we come into the Windows gaming world, there are alternatives that are out there so we have to be cognizant of that," Kim added.
It is also worth noting that Live faces increasing competition on consoles too, especially as Nintendo and Sony currently offer rival services for free, albeit with a presently smaller feature list. More on this as we get it.
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