GFWL Going Away, To Be Replaced With Xbox Live?

[Telefrog]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...rethree10.html

Q: Will Xbox offer games on certified phones, similar to what Sony's PlayStation is doing with Android phones?

A: We think there's a lot of potential on the Windows phones. With the Nokia relationship, we're going to have a lot more distribution of phones and Live will be the primary entertainment service. I think that's going to be a good play for us.

If we have that and the PCs to leverage, that will be a big Live base. It's our job to make "buy a movie in one place and play it everywhere, buy a game in one place and play it everywhere." Making things portable will be a big focus of ours.

Q: How will your services and content be part of Windows 8?

A: There will be a lot of similarities in design and service philosophy. Whether it's us or Apple or anybody else, people want to be able to navigate through multiple devices in a certain ecosystem very seamlessly so we're committed to that.

Q: Will Xbox Live be your cloud media service that works with your Windows PC as well as your phone and Xbox?

A: Xbox Live will the pervasive media service across devices.

Is he saying GFWL will be replaced wholly with Xbox Live, or is he saying parts of GFWL will morph into more of a unified platform?

[sharaleo]

replaced/rolled into, not sure it makes a whole lot of difference.

In fact, rationalising the platforms makes a lot of sense, as far as delivery, support, cross-platform games, etc goes.

[Fugitive]

It already is, really, just with some GFWL labels stuck on in some places. You manage it through the Xbox Live web interface, the profiles are already shared, you get directed to the XBL site for various support issues...

[Telefrog]

It already is, really, just with some GFWL labels stuck on in some places. You manage it through the Xbox Live web interface, the profiles are already shared, you get directed to the XBL site for various support issues...

Sure, but I think he may even be referring to the content like Zune stuff, movies, music, and even... Wait for it... Ads!

[Fugitive]

Sure, but I think he may even be referring to the content like Zune stuff, movies, music, and even... Wait for it... Ads!

Those are things that are really just missing from the PC side implementation, though. Extending the PC side to include them doesn't really require 'replacing/unifying' anything. Well except maybe the Zune stuff, I'm not sure how that works, but then that would be more of a Zune+XBL merger, not a XBL+GFWL merger.

[Telefrog]

Perhaps I'm not being clear. With the Metro interface in Win 8, I expect Xbox Live/GFWL/whatever it's going to be called to look basically like the upcoming U/I for the console experience.



That's a pretty big change from the current GFWL look.

[Fugitive]

I'm probably just thinking more backend than frontend. Improvements and a more unified look on the frontend would certainly be great, but it's probably already all the same on the backend as far as what's actually servicing both XBL and GFWL.

[Greatatlantic]

So, did GFWL ever become anything more than a horrible experience that customers must occasionally plow through to play games?

My last experience with it was Bioshock 2, and the service corrupted my saved games.

[Telefrog]

My recent experience with it in Section 8 Prejudice was not good. I had a persistent "GFWL Failed To Initiate" error that required me to delete both it and the game off my PC and reinstall.

[Universal Leader]

So, did GFWL ever become anything more than a horrible experience that customers must occasionally plow through to play games?

That still pretty much describes it.

[Harkonis]

I never had problems with GFWL other than when I muted my mic on the PC, then went to Xbox, I was muted until I unchecked it.

[Royal Fool]

It's probably just miscommunication. As bad as the "Games For Windows Live" name is, I don't see Microsoft dropping it, even though Xbox has become a brand of its own. Remember that the ugly stepchild only ever gets the crumbs.

[rei]

Don't count them to do anything GFW-related properly. Parts of their website/service integration are still broken beyond repair..

[Alistair]

Whatever this means, seems to be happening on the 11th.

[pyjamarama]

It's brand consolidation. Xbox = games, on the console, on the phone and on the PC. Besides PC Gamer apparently being offend that they have to go Xbox.com this could actually be an improvement for Microsoft PC Games. Xbox.com as lot more traffic that could for example help the Age of Empires launch. Also maybe Microsoft games could actually make it to the PC, like Fable 3.
Another point could be the F2P games rumored to appear on Xbox, they could actually be cross platform games.
The move to Xbox.com doesn't bother me at all the question is will they increase PC support or just continue the same.

[Ben Sones]

will they increase PC support

AHHHH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

No.

[Teiman]

Make some sense. It has never been a independent thing. Everything was linked to Xbox anyway, like the signing the eula. So it was a lie. Now Microsoft will be more honest about it. And with honesty something great can happend. or not, but It will probably be better.

[Rob_Merritt]

This seems like a really bad idea to me. PC games will just get buried.

[Fugitive]

If they merge GFW into the Xbox business unit, that might actually be a significant improvement. The impression I get is that Microsoft isn't really deliberately trying to sabotage PC gaming, it's just divided up into a bunch of different business units, and the GFW unit needs a lot of help from others, for things like marketing, hardware support, XBL interoperation, etc. But the business units are going to look out for their own interests first, and then those of their biggest partners second, and GFW is often going to lose out to the Xbox division when it comes to deciding who to work with, so it dies of neglect. Merge the Xbox and GFW units, and they then have a much stronger ability to pull resources from the other units for PC development.

(Or they could wind up drifting into separate console and PC cliques within the newly merged unit and the resources wind up still going almost entirely to the console guys while the PC guys are ignored and nothing really changes, but that's the kind of thing they can keep in mind when they're restructuring the units.)

[Nesrie]

THey're already kind of merged I thought. I know someone who had their GFWL account hacked by an xbox user to buy games for the 360. She's never owned any xbox units.

[Spoit]

This seems like a really bad idea to me. PC games will just get buried.

As opposed to the way Microsoft has treated GfW in the past?

At least it doesn't eat saves any more

[Paul_cze]

PC Gamer does not like this:

"Remember not too long ago when Microsoft claimed there’d be a new push into PC gaming by the software giant? Well, they’re kicking that bold initiative off by relocating the freshly relaunched (and actually respectable) Games for Windows Marketplace PC game store to…wait for it…Xbox.com. Because when you think of PC gaming, the first place you look is Xbox.com. That’s quite a slap in the face – how much more out-of-touch with PC gamers could they get? Was the crushing cost of maintaining the domain registration of www.gamesforwindows.com really dragging down Microsoft’s bottom line?"



tags: Complete insanity, Games for Windows Marketplace, Microsoft, WTF

[Rob_Merritt]

As opposed to the way Microsoft has treated GfW in the past?

Yes this is actually worse.

[Razgon]

This is the worst idea ever...

Good riddance to GFWL, and I kinda understand they want to ride the digital distribution wave, but make a new platform for gods sake, instead of alienating most of the pc gamers out there

[pyjamarama]

Let's face it GFWL is a complete dead brand no way to bring it back
The PC is and will continue to a very small part of Microsoft games business, by releasing Fable 3 on Steam and other digital stores they gave up on having a big digital retailer presence on the PC but this way they will promote some PC games to XBox users. Besides games that use Live for the PC I suspect that other PC games will not be featured in the new store. Question is if the GFW branding will disappear completely and only a Live enable symbol would remain for the games that use it.

[Rob_Merritt]

There is no way this will be to promote pc games to Xbox users unless when I turn on my xbox, I'll see adds for PC exclusives. You will see nothing but 360 games and maybe buried deep on the individual product page they may mention a pc version. Maybe and if you try to buy it I bet it will try to steer you to the 360 version. I see this as the end of all pc gaming at Microsoft.

[Rachel Brown]

I see this as the end of all pc gaming at Microsoft.

We can but dream. :P

[Fugitive]

So, it's the 11th, any sign of any kind of announcement yet? A friend passed on some rumour about 360 games running on Windows 8, but that seems pretty unlikely and poorly sourced (some 'insider' blog that updates maybe once a week).

[Rob_Merritt]

So, it's the 11th, any sign of any kind of announcement yet? A friend passed on some rumour about 360 games running on Windows 8, but that seems pretty unlikely and poorly sourced (some 'insider' blog that updates maybe once a week).

Maybe in an OnLive type of environment where it is streamed.

[pyjamarama]

The site is live is just another menu in games marketplace, store is similar to what they had. How many times will they feature it on front page, not many I guess.