The Xbox 360 has always had an ace up its sleeve when fighting with its arch rivals, the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 3, and that ace is the Xbox Live, which offers a complete online service to any Xbox 360 user, from the ability to download games, wallpapers and themes to friend lists and so on, and which became very popular with fans.

But, although quite a lot of features are offered to the player free of charge, via the Silver membership, other ones, such as online multiplayer or early access to demos are only for people who pay for the Gold Xbox Live membership. Such a decision from Microsoft has made quite a lot of people angry, as they don't feel like they should pay in order to enjoy the online multiplayer modes that their games have.

In order to make these people less angry, Microsoft has just announced that it will offer, in December, free online play for a few games from the Xbox Live Arcade. People who only have a Silver membership will now be able to play online, free of charge, with a friend who has the Gold subscription. This new action is called Friendship is Free and has the goal of making more people enhance their membership status from Silver to Gold.

Here is the list of games that will be part of this promotion, as found on 1Up:

"A Kingdom for Keflings 
Aegis Wing 
Bomberman Live 
Hardwood Hearts 
Hardwood Spades 
Uno 
Small Arms 
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix"

Although the lineup isn't very impressive, two titles are sure to make any gamer very excited, namely Bomberman Live and Street Fighter, which are both excellent games. All that's left now is for Silver users to find their Gold friends and ask them if they want to play online with them. Let's just hope that everybody will enjoy this promotion and will have a very happy December.