'Friendship is Free' brings limited multiplayer to XBL Silver

by Justin McElroy on Dec 5th 2008 10:00AM

What's that, Xbox Silver members? Come again? Sorry, we Gold members had a hard time hearing you from the private Gold Member hydrofoil. Oh, you want a taste? A taste of the suite life? Well, ask and ye shall receive.

What's that? Oh! The sweet life! Sorry, the Bellini machine is making a terrible racket. Listen, we know you want a taste of Gold, and we think we might have something worked out for you, a little something we and Microsoft are calling "Friendship is Free." For the next month, you'll have free multiplayer access to A Kingdom for Keflings, Aegis Wing, Bomberman Live, Hardwood Hearts, Hardwood Spades, UNO, Small Arms and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

We know, we know, we're being too generous. Our mothers tell us it's a fault in our character, but we like to think of it as just paying it forward.

Source

Tags: Friendship-is-Free, XBLA, Xbox-360, Xbox-Live, Xbox-Live-Silver

Reader Comments (54)

How they have ads in the dashboard even if you pay for Live is beyond me.

Oh wait, they figured out how to close that loophole by rolling out NXE. *rolls eyes*

I had Live for 3 years on the Xbox and 2 years on the 360 before letting it expire. I have -3- 1 month cards from a repair/re-repair/re-re-repair fiasco I went through with Microsoft this summer. Once those are gone, I'll gladly let it roll back to Silver while I continue playing games on the PSN and PC via Steam for free. Friends list, chat, online game play - all free.

There is NO excuse for Xbox Live to cost money anymore, period. It's just a cash cow that Microsoft doesn't want to lead to the slaughterhouse. And in the next year or so when they unveil the 720 or whatever the hell they're going to call the successor to the 360, they'll probably tout more Live features to justify that $50 per year retail price tag.

I always thought that the system was backwards anyway. Silver membership should get you online play, but online play only. Gold membership should get you all the frills to go with it