gamefest posts

During a press reception for the Games for Windows brand at E3 this week, we learned from Microsoft's marketing manager for the Games for Windows program, Kevin Unangst, that the company plans some major announcements for the Games for Windows and the Games for Windows Live brand for next week at Microsoft's annual Gamefest game developer conference.

One of those announcements could be that Microsoft could finally do away with the "Gold" price of the Games for Windows Live. Up until now players that had games that used Games For Windows Live had to pay extra for things like matchmaking, chat, cross-platform multiplayer and other items. IGN is reporting that at least one upcoming game, THQ's Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, will have those "Gold" features in Games for Windows Live free out of the box. At the event we askd Unangst why all of PC titles that used Games for Windows Live couldn't do the same thing and he told us, "There's no reason why they shouldn't." We will be chatting more extensively with Unangst next week about their planned announcements at Gamefest.

One of those announcements will be Direct3D 11, the next version of their graphics API for PC gaming. The Gamesfest schedule shows several panels that will talk directly about Direct3D 11 including its support for Shader Model 5.0.