Games for Windows Live Still Important for Microsoft

Microsoft has made a lot of noise recently about refocusing on PC gaming, relaunching Games for Windows Live and finally getting Fable III, which was supposed to be a simultaneous PC and Xbox 360 release, on the old gaming platform.

And the man at Microsoft that is in charge of PC gaming says that the company is looking to the future for even more PC content, tailor made to the needs of the gamers.

Kevin Unangst, who is the senior director at Microsoft looking out for PC gaming, has told Gamasutra that, “When I look right now, we are at the better point in history on having our Live service with high quality games. Bulletstorm came from Epic, incorporating Live. Age of Empires, of course we’ll be talking about Flight at some point. The games themselves are what define that service, and the games push the service to be better.”

He added, “And as we’re focusing our PC efforts on building PC exclusives - building games that are designed for the PC - we’re going to see the service continue to evolve and take on the characteristics that PC gamers are going to want.”

The executive has not offered any clear information on which exclusives he is talking about or what the PC can offer that gaming consoles cannot.

One of them is certainly the new Age of Empires game, which will be offered under a free-to-play model and will resurrect one of the most important franchises that Microsoft has ever published on the PC.

The problem with Games for Windows Live is that it cannot decide whether it tries to compete with other digital distribution services, like Steam and Direct2Drive, which would mean getting a lot more gamers on offer and maybe lower prices or whether it tries to be a conduit for Microsoft-only content.