This topic sure to be a hotbed of commenting action. Yesterday Microsoft announced that Games for Windows Live, the PC-based equivalent of the Xbox Live service, has changed to a completely free business model. After a lukewarm launch against PC service powerhouse Steam the Games for Live service has ended the Gold/Silver distinction for PC gamers that Xbox Live subscribers are subjected to. Changing to a free model means gamers can compete in cross-platform gaming (where applicable) at no additional charge. The question now remains, does this move signify a a change that must be made to the Xbox Live structure or are the services two completely different beasts. Consider, only a handful of games and features exist on the PC side of Live and with strong competition from other free services it's a move Microsoft had no choice but to make to survive. So, what are your thoughts on Games for Windows Live going free?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in. Via Engadget]

Like Superman and Batman trading capes, or Aquaman borrowing Wonder Woman's uh ... invisible plane, EA and Microsoft have been awfully chummy lately. First, Xbox exec Peter Moore leaves Microsoft to be closer to his family in San Francisco ... and take a lucrative position at EA Sports. Of course, he was replaced with former EA exec Don Mattrick, ensuring the carefully balanced game of corporate Jenga wouldn't come crashing down.

Today, Microsoft announced that EA executive vice president John Schappert has joined the company in the newly created position of "corporate vice president of LIVE, software and services." The one-time founder of Madden-dev Tiburon will oversee Xbox Live as well as Games for Windows Live, XNA and Microsoft Casual Games, which includes Xbox Live Arcade. He'll be reporting directly to his old EA compatriot – you guessed it – Don Mattrick. We imagine their meetings will involve reminiscing about that time they did that thing at that one group team building exercise in '99 and various ways they could spell Microsoft with a consecutive 'e' and an 'a.' Good times, good times.

Now, to complete the circle, Xbox will need to sacrifice one of their own to EA! Let the ritual commence ...

During E3, Microsoft invited us to suffer through a 30-minute Xbox Live marketing spiel (we were lured by the promise of Xbox Live Arcade content -- there wasn't any), puffed with ridiculous figures like the 3 billion hours we've spent collectively on Xbox Live as a community that will soon surpass America's largest city, New York, in total population. Xbox Live general manager JJ Richards acted out these statistics with sweeping gestures and broad smiles, and an air of braggadocio. It was JJ's job to make sure we left that room knowing Microsoft commanded the leading online service for consoles. We did (though we knew it already, thank you).

JJ was there to demonstrate that Microsoft had fulfilled all of its goals and then some since the last E3, using terminology like "neighborhoods" and "districts" to imagine for us a bustling virtual metropolis catering to all types of consumers. He spoke of a "bridge" that had been erected across the ever-flowing void to Windows, connecting an untapped community of gamers to the Xbox Live vision. But further down the void, a second bridge, still under construction, has stalled. When we brought up the topic of Xbox Live for mobile, JJ became visibly peeved, as if we had just smudged the picturesque canvas he was painting aloud. He dodged the topic, firing off some jargon about "pacing" before getting back to the success story.

Microsoft has been busy expanding Xbox Live into Games for Windows Live and the apparently groundbreaking Video Marketplace. So it's not surprising that the mobile aspect, complicated by numerous variables, has been removed from the vision's foreground. But we're still curious. After all, back at that last E3, we had seen a working prototype of mobile Live Anywhere, through which PR man John Porcaro was able to browse our Gamertag profile using his phone. It's exciting technology that the community could use. No rush, but we'd appreciate an actual update. How about it, Microsoft?