Rumor: Microsoft's Live support coming to free Windows games; Minesweeper, Solitaire and more

Microsoft is allegedly preparing to implement Live functionality into the free suite of games that comes with all Windows-enabled PCs: Solitaire, Chess, Checkers, Spades, Hearts, Backgammon, Minesweeper, Purple Place, Spider Solitaire and Freecell. This tip comes courtesy of our trusted source (who accurately predicted Lucidity, NBA 2K10 Draft Combine and Tecmo Bowl: Throwback). Reportedly, each Windows game will not only get Achievements, but also chat and leaderboard support. While unconfirmed by our source, we'd anticipate this to be a free update.

If true -- and hey, our tipster's batting a thousand (that's sports talk for reliable) -- adding Live functionality to these games would be an ideal gateway for Microsoft to usher new users into Live and the Achievements system. After registering a free Games For Windows Live account, a new user would be able to instantly start building Gamerscore cred with the free games included on Windows PCs. It's Drug Dealing 101 -- give 'em the first fix for free, and they'll be hooked!

Reader Comments (66)

Then I'll play the shit out of those game to nab all the achievements

I dunno....I could see a crazy ass "win 2000 different games of Free Cell" achievement

games*

Also, hope this is real, with some fun achievements.

I see I'm not the only achievement junkie who twitched at this. ;)

Oh geez... that's brilliant. Imagine if this stroke caused Microsoft to surge ahead. No one would ever know why...

These better be retro-active, because I'm on 970 games of freecell (depressing) and I'll probably be on 1000 by then and I just know there's a cheevo for that.

Then again is that something I want to show off?

Great...now I can increase my e-Peen for playing with myself....

Do Windows and XBox achievements increase the same Gamerscore or are they independent entities?

Yea they do...if I'm not mistaken

They do, Fallout 3 is in my game list twice in fact since I played it on both PC and Xbox.

Yup. There is also a free live-enabled game called Tinker. I use it mostly top do 1-on-1 voice chat from my PC.

Wait what, this is news to me...
I always thought they were separate...
Damn, im slacking.

Yup, Games For Windows Live shares a gamertag, gamerscore etc with Xbox Live. I've got many a GFWL game which probably make up about a third of my GS. Fallout 3, GTA4, Arkham Asylum, Bioshock 2, Universe At War, Dawn of War 2, Gears of War (PC), Halo 2 PC...the list goes on. That reminds me, I really need to go back and get the rest of the Fallout 3 achievements before New Vegas comes out or I'll never finish it

Spider solitaire FTW!!!!!!

All Windows PC's? So we're talking XP support here, right?

Why would it not support XP? Of course it would include one of their larger OS releases.

XP doesn't even have all those games does it? I doubt they will patch them in

Halo 2 PC doesn't support XP. And it is approaching ten years of age...

XP has seven of those games.

Plus, it has Pinball.

Definitely not XP. Get with the times.

And XP has old versions of the games. Vista and 7 have completely new versions which use vector graphics.

GFWL has only seen Vista+ support so far, as far as I know.

That said, MS is not actively supporting XP any more anyway, so I doubt it. Get Windows 7, it's great. And this is coming from a long time staunch XP fanboy.

It's most assuredly for Windows 7, probably Vista as well. XP on the other hand they're in the process of phasing out support for it, so I doubt it's games will get the GFWL patch.

I'm aware Windows 7 is great, but my comp would probably have a stroke trying to run it.

As long as it has Vista support, that's fine. I've got that on the laptop.

Blight, 7 runs pretty well on low specced machines, actually (unlike vista). i've seen several people say it runs great on their netbooks that originally had XP (though you may want to turn off Aero).

also, i'm looking forward to getting cheevos for playing minesweeper. finally, i can work on my gamerscore in class!

No, my desktop is ancient. Radeon 9250 isn't going to run Win 7 well.

Whatever happened to pinball? I loved that game.

OMG minesweeper is back on the radar baby!

Solitaire Deathmatch vs. Mom is back on the radar.

Wish they'd make a free Xbox port of these games..

ROFLMAO!!!

Now that's funny

That's not funny, that'd be awesome. I would love a quickly-loadable game of minesweeper to play during the downtime, i.e. waiting for friends to show up.

It is funny....look at how they are charging you to play FREE games in the Gameroom...u think they would give u free?

@Chris D

I didn't realize the most (if not all) games in Game Room were freeware. Widely pirated, yes. Freeware, no.

I play so much of these games, mainly FreeCell its not even funny. I cant wait to get all Free Cell achievements.

I'd like to take this time to mention that Solitare has the best ending in all of videogames.

Just wait for the sequel.

That ending freaked me out when I was a child playing with Win 3.1

So is there an achievement for making a max-sized Minesweeper grid with only one mine? :)

Achievement Unlocked: Panzy.

Achievement Unlocked
20 G - Stop playing with yourself
(Win five games of solitaire)

Achievement Unlocked
30 G - You're going to go blind.....
(Win fifty games of solitaire)

Achievement Unlocked
50 G - Is that hair on your palms!?
(Win 500 games of solitaire)

Achievement Unlocked
20 G - Try the other hand
(Win one game of free cell)

Achievement Unlocked
Blow me- 50GP
Win a game of minesweeper with all custom settings maxed.

See that's a better job than what I was saying....lol

good shit!!

Hilarious article about Solitare, just had to post it (maddox is awesome): http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=solitaire

Here we go. I know too many people have methods of cheating these games. This should be fun.

For real? How exactly do you cheat at Solitare? The fun lies in the effort you put in.

3rd party programs and such. There's ones out there that will automatically complete solitaire for you. It's the same reason I do not play on yahoo games anymore. People cheat at billiards with line hacks, people cheat at scrabble with word programs, etc. It gets old.

Next up: movie tie-ins.

Minesweeper: The Reckoning!

Space Cadet: The Movie!

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Rumor: Microsoft's Live support coming to free Windows games; Minesweeper, Solitaire and more

Reader Comments (66)

Posted: Apr 6th 2010 3:07PM ArenzanaSG said

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