Similar to the Xbox 360, Xbox Live for PCs has a dual membership system. It’s free to get a silver membership where you have a gamertag (the same one if you’re a 360 owner), private chat, single player achievements and the ability to play games with other PC owners. If you want to upgrade to gold membership for $49.99 you can earn multiplayer achievements and play cross-platform. There are three cross platform games announced for the Games for Windows brand: Halo 2, Shadowrun and Uno. If you already pay for a Live membership you’re going to get all of the additional PC features for free, since Live is one service. However, if you’re solely a PC gamer spending $50 to play Halo 2 and Uno with 360 owners seems like a steep price. With the free silver membership you can play with fellow PC gamers for free minus TrueSkill matchmaking.
See the full list of features past the break.
Silver Membership Features
• Single gamertag
• Common gamer profile
• Common gamerscore
• Single player achievements
• Private chat via text and voice
• Common friends list and online presence
• PC only multiplayer including browsing a list of active PC games
Gold Membership Features
• All Silver membership features
• Multiplayer matchmaking with friends
• TrueSkill™ matchmaking
• Multiplayer achievements
• Cross-platform gameplay
