Games for Windows Live, the PC companion to the Xbox Live, has never been a great success. Recently, the platform has been relaunched and high profile
developers like THQ have announced that they plan to implement the service for multiplayer in Dawn of War 2. Microsoft thinks that there's room for growth and that the service might soon begin offering digital downloads the same way that Steam, Impulse or Gamersgate already do.
Michael Wolf, who is the senior marketing manager at Games for Windows Live, told GameDaily that the PC is “the cradle of innovation” and that “The PC gaming industry is not in decline; it's evolving and it's definitely evolving to a more online market”. No schedule for the
release of full games on the service has been provided by Microsoft.
The big news might be the fact that the Redmond giant has pretty much given up on pushing for cross platform play. It seems like a very good idea initially for the Xbox 360 and the PC to be able to communicate and for players on both platforms to pit their gaming skills against each other. But the few titles which supported the feature were not huge successes and cross platform play never really took off.
Michael Wolf says that no future Microsoft game will implement the feature but that the company is ready to share all its know how with third party companies interested in the opportunity. He stated that “The community hasn't really had a huge outcry for it. It's one of those features that's really cool, but we're also hearing that it's not something we have to deliver”. It seems that as long as PC players use mice and keyboard setups, while console gamers use controllers, cross platform play is unlikely to prove a big success, although the underlying concept is sound.
