Rumor: XBL Silver Now Allows Free Online Play?

OK, this is hard to run down exactly, because there's a Live Weekend going on right now, which means you can play online for free on Xbox Live. But reader Draco, a Silver level gamer, says that he's been playing cross-platform multiplayer games for free since Wednesday night, which precedes the Live Weekend (which started at midnight Friday.)

[pwnsause]

cross platfrom multiplayer games are free.

[Kleptic]

yeah I thought MS stated that when the game released...would probably piss some 360 owners off that are paying to play PC gamers that are playing it for free...unless it required that joke Windows Live service too...

[fufotrufo]

if true..the end of the poor PSN

[Jackthepwnsaur]

why poor PSN if the games that arent cross game multiplayer still needs a fee to be played on live? stop being ahead of yourself.

[Aclay]

NO, if this is true it's not the end of poor PSN, the people that have already paid $50 bucks for Xbox Live Gold have gotten ripped off, that's what.

[mikeslemonade]

No, if true... microsoft gaming studios will go out of business because then everyone would cancel the $50 subscription which is a key driver for their profit. How else can they afford getting FFXIII and GTA4 exclusive content?

[Sayai jin]

It will not end the PSN, but it will make XBL even more appealing and give 360 owners an excellent free service.

Yeah, I mean no! MS Game studios will not go out of business. MS has money to throw into this division.

[mfwahwah]

it works for Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition and Universe at War: Earth Assault, too.

[jaysquared]

Sony will probably go out of business before MGS(Microsoft Game Studio) goes out of business! C'mon Halo3 sold 1 million the first 10 minutes it came out. The biggest game on the PS3 which isn't even a 1st party game to come out (MGS4) only sold 700k the first month. The other BIG PS3 game FF13 is going multiplat.. When KZ2 flops it would only guarantee that Sony will be selling all of their first party studios. A game like KZ2 thats taking $50 million to develop and would probably sell only 1 million throughout its lifetime because of the bad reviews its going to get will just be icing on the cake!

[Jackthepwnsaur]

"Sony will probably go out of business before MGS(Microsoft Game Studio) goes out of business! C'mon Halo3 sold 1 million the first 10 minutes it came out. The biggest game on the PS3 which isn't even a 1st party game to come out (MGS4) only sold 700k the first month. The other BIG PS3 game FF13 is going multiplat.. When KZ2 flops it would only guarantee that Sony will be selling all of their first party studios. A game like KZ2 thats taking $50 million to develop and would probably sell only 1 million throughout its lifetime because of the bad reviews its going to get will just be icing on the cake!"

How will sony go out of business if the sell TVs, Home theater systems, walkmans, have 2 movie studios(Columbia and MGM), sell BD players, burners etc.? did you forget this? did you also forget that the PS2 have sold over 140million consoles and counting? did you forget that the PS2 is helping Sony profit in its gaming division while the PS3 is attempting to become profitable, which it will by march 2009 since it doesnt have ridiculous defects that the 360 has with its RROD issue, in which Microsoft payed 2 billion dollars last year to attempt to fix the problem?

did you not see what KZ2 has going? look at the KZ2 fact sheet and come back to me when you talk about KZ2 flopping because theres no chance in hell that its not. Guerilla Games have smacked the doubters in the face by showing visuals that are only possible on the PS3, not to mention the gameplay and it multiplayer counterpart.

and before you talked about how they spent $50 million dollars on making Killzone 2, go look at Halo 3, a game that looks almost exactly like halo 2, with the only difference in lighting. not to mention they had to degrade the game's resoution because they wanted to make the lighting right. all that took 50 MILLION DOLLARS TO MAKE, and it was a very disapointing game and a very disapointing ending, with a multiplayer that actually played the sameway halo 2's multiplayer played, just with the differnce of adding new weapons.

and when you talk about FFXIII going multiplatform, just go back to all those articles and read on the PS3 version will sell more than the 360 version.

[GarandShooter]

If this is true the X-onlys should be thanking PSN. The competition drives improvement.

[Somnus]

Pretty stupid of them to post it on the Official Xbox forum.

[name]

After reading the forum it's only for cross platform PC games that play with 360's. Since windows is free now.

[Gam71]

This is nothing new.

I've been saying for a couple of months that some games are playable online through silver

Don't ask me which ones but someone at M$ call centre said.

[Darkiewonder]

It's shadowrun. lawlz.

[JoKeR]

Shadowrun is actually a great competitive game... @people who disagree - Shadowrun was on the MLG pro circuit, its just too bad the game catered to the minority (competitive players). i doubt u ppl have even played the game. lol

[PirateThom]

It's not, it's terrible.

[thenickel]

It's a good game and no where near terrible imo...Some of you really go out there like what you believe is the only truth or something...i'm willing to bet you never even played the game to begin with.

[Wolfmoonstrike]

I agree with and would like to add that a lot of people do the same thing w/ lair.

[TOSgamer]

and compared to what it gave you at $60 and what Warhawk offers at $40 then and even now 1 year later as new modes were just release for Warhawk is a joke.

[thenickel]

I agree with you also wolf...

[kazuma]

it was just an average game...move along

[Grassroots]

It was a nice multiplayer game, it had content to entertain for a few months. Shame about the studio, they will be missed.

[1stKnighT]

Yeah Shadowrun was a good competitive game with great balance. I can see why MLG added this game to their impressive competitive lineup. What sucks about the ratings of this game is that it got alot of points taken off because the lack of game types but it still had more game types than Warhawk. Just another game that sony fanboys bash and know nothing about.

[jaysquared]

That's because PS3 owners don't know what a good game are.. Looking at their console. They have games like Lair with its crappy controls, Heavenly Sword with its repetitive gameplay that was three hours long, Uncharted a pretty game with no depth and no replay value, Motorstorm a so called racing game wih only 8 tracks, MGS4 that has a good story but is more of a movie than a game.. So PS3 fans dont' know what a good game really is!

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

"Don't know what a good game are..."??? You're kidding me, right? Do you live in an English-speaking country, my friend?

Lair - Analog controls are available for download over the PSN.

Heavenly Sword - 8 Hours long...great game...great storyline...not the tightest controls in the world, but still incredible! Play it sometime!

Uncharted - How do you dis Uncharted? The game is a masterpiece! It told the story more fluidly than any game I've ever played! Most people actually played it through at least 3 or 4 times though...unlike what you posted. Ask anyone that's played it. The unlockables are SO worth it!

Motorstorm - Best Arcade racer I've ever played. It's always different because the AI is so amazing! If you can name another racing game with tracks as memorable as ONE of Motorstorm's, I will take back everything I've said here.

MGS4 - You're grabbing at straws here. MGS4 is possibly the greatest game this generation...but only according to about 99% of gamers. That other 1% must be the "right" ones then, huh? It's a game with amazing cutscenes. Can you not handle that or what, dude?

Get over yourself, dude.

Fanboy or no fanboy, you're a moron.

I'm pretty sure everybody knows that now.

You backed up 1stKnight. You should've known this would end badly.

[jaysquared]

"Heavenly Sword - 8 Hours long...great game...great storyline...not the tightest controls in the world, but still incredible! Play it sometime!"

You must suck at games when everybody else took 3 hours to beat it!! LOL!

[Jinxstar]

@ Jay

If make up a contract I will give you my entire paycheck for a year if you can beat it in 3 hours first time through. It is not possible to beat that fast. 5-6 Maybe on an extreme speed run. I took my time and it lasted me about 12 hours. Only cause I took everything in. You fail at posting. get over yourself. You are a moron.

[jack who]

hmmm too bad theres only an hand full of cross platfrom games

[power of Green]

Don't even play cross platform games at this point.

[PimpHandHappy]

just askin

[Solid_Snake666]

with himself

[SpecialSauce]

good one

[RAM MAGNUMS]

wake me up when live is free

[n00bzRtehgey]

How about we wake you up when you get two bubbles instead?

[SpecialSauce]

but then agn i guess i shouldn't be talking. :(

[pp]

wow wow wow thats great

[Shadow Flare]

You have Banjo-Kazooie as your avatar??

MOVING ON.......

[chrisnick]

congrats guys...u got something for free.....u might not know it..but at the moment, ur experiencing a feeling wii and ps3 owners have had since november of 2006...its called......................sa tisfaction.

[Deadman64]

And your just now experiencing SOME of what we have been, in an online service, since before this generation.

[chrisnick]

umm i owned 1 ps2 and 5 xboxes..the first 2 died for no reason, one i broke myself, and the other 2 i had to mod b4 it was useful to me, and still died even after i modded it...hated xbox online anyway...yeah its better now...but i have a bunch of xbox games i paid for on live that sucked ass all of which i dont' play now...put good games on the service instead of just puttin crap out and recallin it later and ill care..not to mention the 6 year olds who sit there and totally destroy the experience for me but hey...its better...today.

[TheWiseguy]

so does that mean gears of war can be played on XBL Silver ?

[Fototherapist]

based on what some posters have said about Windows Live, logically you would think you could. I'll try it out tonight.

[Altis1]

On the PC version of Gears of War, the superior version might I add, Silver members are able to play for free. This is great because the number of host with awesome connections has greatly increased.

[Wolfmoonstrike]

I'm glad there are some games out there on live that you don't have to pay to play. anybody have a list of those games?

[PirateThom]

Shadowrun...

Universe at War: Earth Assault

That's it.

[Infernus]

Wow, I can play online now (PC). Never played online with it because of the crappy Game for Windows thing resricting the good online game modes.

[zonetrooper5]

Actually one of my friends a few months back was able to play Halo 3 online with a Sliver account but you could only play online co-op, unranked playlists, forge and custom games.

[-EvoAnubis-]

Interesting, but pointless.

Unless they make online gaming free PERIOD, then they have nothing coming from me.

[Sitdown]

Its pointless that individuals get to play a game without having to pay for a live gold subscription? Okay then...

[TheDude2dot0]

@Sitdown

I'm afraid you missed his point.

[Skerj]

Yay Shadowrun. ..wait.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Bubbles...

[Bladestar]

as I say before.. Sony leg humpers always harrasing xbox live gold accounts... and always bringing the only thing they can possibly mention, "PNS is free" to feel better about the half-arse PSN... if microsoft makes online multiplay available to silver account... PSN will be known as crap... no longer would leg humpers say, "but it's free"...

[princejb134]

honestly your right
free is always better in my point of view
ones xbl is free ill start playing my 360 online ones again but for now psn for me

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

I somehow get the feeling you don't own a 360.

[ELite_Ghost]

or just get ps3!

[n00bzRtehgey]

no games

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Or 40hr movies pretending to be games

[Mr_Potato_]

The crapbox is the console with no game this year. Banjo and Pinata lol + gears 1.5 good game ! I'll buy your rrodbox when it gets to 1$ in 2010. Look, your HDDVD player is already worth 1$ (nice cup handler by the way).

MGS 4 kills your whole library by itself. :)

[-Maverick-]

ROFL PS3 is garbage

[Ali_The_Brit]

yeh your right, theres no games at all...

/eye roll

[ELite_Ghost]

ps3 has quality, 360 quantity. 360 is a slut bag console...

[ReBurn]

It'll be interesting to see how long Microsoft can continue to charge for online play. They saw that PC gamers wouldn't do it. PS3 gamers don't have to do it. Wii gamers don't have to do it. Looks to me like Xbox Live Gold is starting to lose its luster a bit.

[jaja1434]

I'm actually more curious to see if Sony will start to charge for theirs.

The wallet in my jeans wants MS to copy Sony in having a free service, but the two(waste of a damn to much money and time) business courses tell me it's more likely Sony will charge for theirs sooner or later.

[mrnjl]

Actually the list is:
Shadowrun
Universe at War: Earth Assault
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition

Just thought Id put the missing one in the list that the fanb..I mean PirateThom forgot.(lol sorry but anything on Xbox to you is terrible, so I take your opinion with a grain of salt as I don't think you even own a 360)
I reckon we will see live fees either go down or get axed.

[gambare]

mm.... sounds logical, they are not forcing to pay for a gold account to play online something the PC users are playing for free, it would be dumb (for microsoft) to make the online game free because many people are paying gold just for the online play, if they make the online gaming free they will lose almost all the gold accounts. But those who don't want to pay for online gaming are buying a PS3 anyway.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

This is a great game.

[Mr_Potato_]

No it's terrible, but that's the best you'll get this year on crapbox.

Too Human is even worse, achievement unlocked. Xbox FTW.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

What is this now, your 30th account?

BTW your still in last place "in everything"

[Slade23]

i knew something was going to happen with the live silver account. i knew it all along. but this is great. but then you guys are talking about gold account. you know am tried of litstening to you guys saying stuff off topic on the 360 articles. can you just take a break. we don't know what will happen next all we know about is that silver is right now having some games like shadowrun,lost planet and others that are right now free online play in the silver account. there might be some more that won't be cross mulitplatform or will be CM. just wait and see, but don't think ahead of yourslef ps3 and 360 fanboys.

[GameDev]

MS and their ahole pay to play online scam are going DOWN baby.

stupid bastards how long did you think you could keep ripping people off with a peer to peer service??

[WorseCase]

www.gamesonsmash.com

[shikwan]

For those that hate on this game;

It really is good - despite the low reviews.

Sure some animations could've been better; like climbing ladders...but that didn't stop Counter-Strike from dominating worldwide.

And MOSTLY it got bad reviews because of the campaign mode. It was meant, however to be played online.......like UNREAL TOURNAMENT, which got good reviews but is simialr in gameplay (meant for online/bad campaign).

This was without a doubt, a sleeper title that won't be recognized for years to come. Too bad the dev team has been dismantled.

Reminds me of Men of Valor.

[butterfinger]

You are still on N4G?! You would think that you would pick up a controller and play sometime since that is what you are always telling others to do. Nothing but another fanboy. You must feel right at home. lol.

[outlawlife]

its 3 games and only cause live for windows flopped...you won't see a lot of free to play silver games

if you do then microsoft will ahve to introduce more things exclusive on the gold format

i highly suspect you won't see many more games like this

[Mcrmarcher]

Ms mite make online play free with silver but, keep features that silver dosen't have on gold. Some People would still pay for gold membership etc.

[Imallvol7]

PLEASE LET THIS BE TRUE MS!!!!!

And for all the morons acting like this is bad or trying to turn it into an argument, just shut up. This is great for everyone!

[Meresin]

Sounds like a bug to me. :P

[mrnjl]

The only feature Gold has over Silver is online play and gold members get demos a week before silver... thats it. Voice chat, messaging video marketplace and all the other stuff xbox live offers is free.
If they gave online play to silvers they would need to offer a hell of alot more than just 1 week early demos for gold members.

[mf_fm]

i ll wait for the xbox 720 thank you very much.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

I just have a Bronze account...

[KRUSSIDULL]

Lol that sucks you cant even download gamerpics i have myself a platnium card.

[badkolo]

silver needs to become gold for free.

gold needs to become something like platinum for 50a year but it gets you alot more then what your getting now.

Once sony adds cross join and invite then both sony has the advantage as its free and does the things that live did.

I want to see what happens first, sony charging or live going free. and i can easily see sony never charging out of spite and keeping it that way.

[iHeretic]

I have a silver account on my Xbox 360 and I can play all the social playlists in Halo 3, which means about 50% of Halo 3's online is unlocked with Silver.

[Fototherapist]

I'm going to try it out tonight! Thanks.

[titntin]

Its a shame that this is for just a handful of titles as result of 'live for windows' failure.

I'd very much like to see this become a reality and offer all people with a 360 online multiplayer for free on all titles! I somehow doubt that this will happen though, as in general people are content to pay, and its a big revenue stream for MS. I'd love to be proved wrong though...

As for for what such a move would do for PSN, it won't do anything. If you use a PS3, you use PSN, if you use 360, you use live. Theres no choice in either case, and to claim the two services are in direct competition is silly as they are both platform specific.

The pointless bickering of a few squabbling kids on the internet is only really of value to those who wish to cliam one-up-manship and bragging rights, but its this very squabble that generates hits for these sites and ensures that lame news embraced and real news gets overlooked...

[hotrider12]

the main question is is why suddenly MS offering any game free on XBL ?? they are money hungry bastards so whats the catch?? did they do a research on playstation network?? or are they tired of gamers whining about XBL should be free?? or has it dawn on MS that they might lose 360 fans over to ps3 for free online gaming?? so now MS offering free XBL service soon for silver and maybe gold??

[ReBurn]

Sony's not in the business of making money? Or are you saying they're willing to do without profit if it keeps their customers happy?

[AmpedMan]

Somehow you turned one positive thing Microsoft has done into a negative one.

Anyway, Microsoft has earned much money from the XBL subscription fees. In return they've offered some solid server hosting, and a great unified platform. In no way was this worth the annual $50, but it was marginally better than PSN and much better than Wii. My question is how are they going to continue paying for all of this while still turning a profit in the games division?

[jinn]

who in the world is in charge of deciding to make it free?

[PGunzZ]

nice post rofl

[vampireghost]

I just think that M$ doesn't really care whether it's free or not! They figure if they pay why not! Besides M$ has just about every American in it's playing field and all they need now is to offer the live service for free so they can free up the man power it takes to keep up the maintenance since sony's group doesn't seem to care very much about the time it takes to add new features(aka @Home). sure they want! want! want! but essentially sony gamers are very patient and M$ understands that and are probably working towards that type of model. Hey it's more about online play right?(and there is alot of that going on!) M$ knows what they're doing! I think it'll be free sooner or later!

[Fototherapist]

because everyone should be able to play their multiplayer games for free. PS3 owners can and PC owners can. Why not 360 owners? Hell, even DS owners can play online multiplayer for free. If M$ wants to charge a fee for premium, exclusive content they are certainly welcome to do so. I just won't be paying it.

[XtaZ]

I seriously doubt they will make XBL free and to be honest I hope they won't. You get what you pay for and I don't want to see the quality of XBL go down because they stop charging for it. And $50 for a year of online play? That's nothing to complain about! If you can't afford the $50 a year you probably could not afford the Xbox 360 console itself in the first place. Btw, Here in Norway a year of XBL costs about $100 and not $50. It's not fair but it's still worth it :)

[EnforcerOfTheTruth]

LOL you pay and don't even get dedicated servers for your money. That's simply ridiculous and no matter how you twist it, it means one game less a year and a few hundred bucks over the consoles lifetime. Add to it that you are paying for something that was always free and the whole world still enjoys it for free.

[devilhunterx]

M$ should instead double the price, you know just for fun. XB2 will gladly pay it, and makeup some whiny excuse why they love paying it.

[EnforcerOfTheTruth]

I somehow feel sorry for the MS fanboys, everyone can play online for free, just them not. Well maybe not so, it's their own fault if they pay for something that was always free and should be free. This rumour better becomes true and also not just for the 360/PC crossplatform games, if not shame on you MS, especially because Windows Live is free. Pretty ridiculous MS demands on the console for this service money while on PC this same service is free. It's beyond me how can anyone support such a crooked company.

[Morgue]

who cares

[tobin_blade]

I pay for gold membership and it wouldn't bother me if they made it free to everyone eventually.

There timing of it has to be good though... or they need to reward the people who paid for the gold membership all this time.

Maybe a free arcade game? LOL

[IaMs12]

it would be sweet if we could play XBL for free, no lie but come to think of it $50 for 1 year is not that bad... thats 365 days (probably less on how MS looks at a year though) but if you really want to play online its doable for most people, i mean it does add up in the end, and if you have a decent job it would be paid for in a week... now im not saying i like paying but people who play WoW and stuff like that pay more in a year then we do...

I dont really think it would screw over a lot of Goldmembership people now if they would make it free... it would be saving them money as well so why complain now your getting it free.. If you didnt want to pay for it, then why buy it in the first place?

[Elven6]

They actually give you a month for free so its 13 months for $50

[ninja_united]

this a temporarily thing tha ms is doing to fool some morons, cmon do u think that ms is going to lose that money from xbox live LOL LOSERS ¡¡¡¡
on the other hand PSN is free, has been free and it will be free ¡¡¡¡

[IPlayGames]

good for them

[poopface1]

imm going to try and play cod4 with my silver right now. If it works then Im totaly awsome for not renewing my gold. I really thought it would be free soon.

Just checked and COD4 doesnt work with my silver account. Ohh well. IM STILL GONNA WAIT CRAPPY MICROSOFT.

I got a new Idea. In order to make up for the RRoD(I never got one) they should make online games free. They are cheap bastards if they dont do this soon.

[Mcrmarcher]

If they made oline free it would be a great move agaisnt psn, but many gold members would be p1ssed, they should give the gold members ms points to spend, the amount of points would vary on how long the person has been using the gold subscription.

[Gerard Way]

The time my friend steve got teabagged by master chief. Check out the image, yo.

[LFC1EE]

Who cares? it should have been free in the begining.

[Greedy Genius]

heavenly sword is good for what it is but since u say it has repetitive gameplay then all your xbox360 games are repetitive too

halo3 - all you do is shoot aliens throughout the whole game , is that repetitive gameplay ?
gears of war - all you do is shoot locust and that other crap throughout the whole game , is that repetitive gameplay? .
forza - all you do is race around tracks through out the whole game , is that repetitive gameplay ?

so yea you need to be smart with your comments

[EXP420]

well now i got the best game online now for free but wait my xbox froze well ill just restart it f**k now it says cannot read disc ok take it out its brand new ok call xbox support hello sir yes my xbox is doing this your to send me a box an xbox no!! ok

2 week of playing ps3 waiting for my xbox360 to come its here so lets play that grate game now ok um...um.... whats this 3 flashing red lites @#$@#% @#^#$%^$ #$#$^# $@@#$

im am an ex xbox fanboy 360 has the best online but this is kinda why im a ps3 guy because my nes outlived my 360

[Highwayman]

It really is amazing to see how storys like this one, storys that say something about another console get so many comments...Shows me who so many people get bent out of shape over some plastic..