Although it was a bit of a no-brainer, there were some of us who hoped that Grand Theft Auto IV for the
PC would not be a Games For Windows exclusive. The dream of playing over the Local Area Network with friends, tearing up Liberty City, was a nice one, but it was only a dream.
Rockstar and Microsoft have just announced that it will be an exclusive title for GFW, meaning that for any multiplayer activity, the GFW Live system will be employed. Of course, Live is great, on the Xbox 360, but for the PC, it isn't really the sharpest tool in the box. Although Microsoft made the complete service free of charge, despite the fact that Xbox users still have to pay for the Gold membership, popularity isn't rising.
As another way of preparation for the upcoming launch of GTA IV for the PC, Microsoft has also announced several improvements and new features that will arrive to the GFW Live system. First of all, there’s going to be a new and revamped interface designed to replace the old Xbox Live one. Also a novel feature will be the addition of a new Marketplace, where gamers can download demos and trailers of their favorite games and buy Downloadable Content Packs for them. Microsoft also stated that further upcoming games, the likes of Fallout 3, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II and the movie-based James Bond: Quantum of Solace game, would benefit from the GFW Live service too.
Looks like Microsoft is really employing the stuff learned with the Xbox 360 on the PC version of Live, but let's hope it will be smooth sailing from here, because the rough waters clearly didn't impress Windows users very much.
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