News Games for Windows Live redesigned

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/11/13/games-for-windows-live-redesigned/1

Microsoft has quietly redesigned the Games for Windows service, as well as overhauling the marketplace section.

 

When can the Xbox 360 have live for free?

 

Should be...

?

Dont use this tool at all, dint even know of it, I tend to use Steam for all my games and tracking, and I dont wish for multiple game clients so unlikely ill even bother to install it.

 

i remember the uproar of when it came with GoW for the pc, to suddenly start charging pc gamers for somethingtheyve had for years was possibly the stupidest thing MS did,.

no wonder its now free. no idiot paid for it.

 

Sigh, this is bad, MS is late, and is trying to get more control over the PC market, and what devs do with their games. Say good bye to mods for FO3 as they will use GFWL and charge for DLC. Sigh. MS seriously does not understand the PC market.

 

Delphium, the Marketplace is not out yet, so thats why you never used it, you can't, it is coming in a few weeks, and it is not just a bit, it is an entirely new thing to the GFWL service. Still sucks though, MS just trying to get a piece of the PC market via DLC and forcing gamers to use their service to get updates and DLC.

 

Unfortunatly they understand it all too well, this is standard microsoft fare.

Enter an established market with a product which offers little or no real benefit over any other but make it free and included with windows then proceed to make it slightly different over time thus moving from a implementation of a standard to a whole new propriety standard which you can now charge for or use as leverage

For reference see IE, mp3, divx/xvid, smb, they're trying it with jpeg. Some times they fail, netbui.

 

This is nice, looking forward to it

This also could be a hint at Xbox and Windows streamlining and potential integration

 

The last thing we need is Xbox and PC gaming integration, PC gaming is a different beast.

 

~Oooh how do I see the new interface?

I was having to put up with the xbox interface last week on my PC where it keeps prompting you to press the A and B button which is infuriating .

Although really I don't want 'games for windows live', I want more steam.

 

The PC had Achievements before?

 

Haven't looked into the system at all, but I hope the bar isn't limited to be at the top of the screen, or at the bottom for that matter as personally it wouldn't work for me if that were the case.

Good thing they're working on improving it anyway.

 

certain parts of GoW MP were locked to gold subscribers only. matchmaking was another gold only service, and achievements? HA! what a waste of time

 

WOW, achievements, I love getting a stupid pop up saying I got an achievement completing a quest in a game, lol, talk about rubbush and pointless. Achievements seem tacky, and like a way to get 5 years old to aim for something. Seriously. If that is your argument, achievements, then I rest my case.

 

Pc gaming does not care for achievements, that is a console kid pointless feature. Seriouly, what the hell is the point of it? WOW, my gamerscore is more then yours. Please.

 

hopefully this will get better with time and be another competitor to Steam.. nothing like competition to make things better for the consumer .....usually

 

I actually rather like achievements, they're sometimes quite funny and interesting and sometimes push you to really play the game to achieve them. The newer Steam game have em

 

I wasn't arguing for it and you completely missed my point. I was just pointing out that they weren't charging for something that was already free as was said by the poster I quoted.

EDIT: Well, actually, apart from one thing which is actually quite a major one: cross-platform multiplayer.

I just wanted to make it clear (although obviously I haven't done a good job of it) that the misconception at the time that they're charging for multiplayer wasn't true. So what's the big deal? Just don't subscribe to Gold and stick to Silver - that's what I thought at the time.

 

Wasnt this update supposed to include a desktop GFW Live client? Its kinda annoying to have to go into a game just to access the dashboard...

-Indybird

 

It'll be odd to have to start a game eg Fallout in order to access the Marketplace. Im sure they'll change it again so that you can have Games for Windows Live running in the background outside your games, like Steam, so that you can download demos and trailers.

Steam will hopefully be way ahead here and be much more in tune to PC gamers. Either way, someone needs to find away to make PC gaming more accessible and standardised without dumbing it down or removing customisability. Streamline processes like installation, patches, games lists, online access and community - and do it all without taking the process totally out of the hands of the user or insulting their intelligence.

Of course MS have an advantage here - being able to integrate LIVE into Windows itself - whereas Steam will always be a 3rd party app. Unless they make their own games focused OS, that would be awesome.

As for the new look for GFWL - I dont like it much, looks too baby blue with big baby buttons.