Neowin.net

My apologies, I grabbed a link I found thinking it was the update. Fixed the article.

Here is the latest client
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&DisplayLang=en

Demos are free

From the article: "where gamers can go and purchase demos"

Well, seeing as the 360 dashboard is about to be revamped, I guess they wanted to update this as well.

EA killed the PC star.
"In my mind and in my xbox, We can't rewind we've gone too far Oh-a-a-a oh Oh- a-a-a oh "

I think what is killing the pc gaming is the current evolution of graphics card, your only a year old PC can be obsolete for recent games, while the xbox360 (3 year old) is up date for run any game designed for this console.

I'll agree with that.

I disagree. A decent card will run games for several years. My last PC managed to go for 3 years with no major updates.

Sure, eventually you cant run games at max but noone has to anyway. You may see this as a con but it's progression. On the flip side consoles don't even give you the option, your forced to run games to a level that will run on X amount of years old hardware. In many cases something like Cryisis or whatever running at bellow highest settings still look better than most if not all console games as a result.

People need to loose the belief that games need to be run maxed out. Graphics cards aren't that insanely expensive if you don't try to buy the top end, they can last several years and still run games at high to mid settings and look fantastic even if you loose a few fps over time and most importantly, a game with some anti aliasing or whatever disabled is still as fun a gaming experience as one with it enabled in 90% of cases.

Edit:
If anything is killing PC Gaming I think its the following:
a) Perceived cost and complexity. The fact people believe PC gaming is expensive and that they need to upgrade every year scares them away. As it stands, any user with a dual core CPU can throw in a graphics card and theyre probably good to go without a full system upgrade. In Aus here you can get decent graphics cards for the mid $200's where an XBox 360 will set you back $400 for a pro (with some games) and a PS3 is still $680 with a single title included.

b) Piracy. Not only the fact piracy does cost game companies money but also the industry panicking in regards to this and either drawing out of development or trying to fight piracy with DRM. Time and time again companies like EA have to say sorry and implement fixes for their DRM issues only to repeat the mistake again. It's laughable but one day these companies are going to have to stop biting the hand that feeds. Their DRM is making piracy look like a good option, not a bad one as for many users the headache of having to worry about how many systems they install their game on or how many times is alot more trouble than just getting a cracked copy.

Last edited by Smigit on 13 Nov 2008 - 20:57

Exactly, MS just about abandoned the PC market with Xbox so then Valve comes in with an awesome service like Steam and totally blows anything Microsoft has ever come out with for PC in this regard out of the water.

There is a client. It's due to be released right around the same time as GTA IV for the PC.

See details here:

http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/Live/...vesoftware.aspx

This has been known ever since MS made the service free.

Ever heard of Petroglyph?
Or Gas Powered Games?

The immediate issue is that many GfW titles don't (for whatever reason) use the GWL matchmaking service (instead, they more often than not have arrangements with IGN; the sole exceptions are Blizzard and GPG, which have their own services).

The other issue (at least for developers) is that GWL is too much like XBL for PCs; developers (especially PC game developers) want to keep the PC and console development as highly separated as possible (even if one is actually a port of the other); the thinking is that GWL = console port (often a badly done console port, at that).