GFW on Demand now offers day-and-date releases

by Alexander Sliwinski on Jun 8th 2010 7:10PM

When Games for Windows Live's Games on Demand service launched in December we said it was "marching onto the [PC digital distribution] field about an hour after the match ended." Three hours later (in metaphoric time), the service announced today it will offer day-and-date game releases from publishers 2K Games, Capcom, Microsoft Game Studios (what a coup!), Rockstar Games, THQ and Ubisoft. We can't help but imagine Steam, Impulse and all the other digital distribution players at their post-game parties laughing.

The initial day-and-date offering by the service is Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. At the same time, the Prince of Persia games The Sands of Time and Warrior Within are each $2.50 -- which seem like much better deals than the aforementioned title. The service has also added several more games, which we've listed after the break.
Additional non-LIVE titles available:

Age of Empires III
Assassin's Creed 2
Borderlands
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Source

Tags: 2k-Games, capcom, Games-for-Windows, games-for-windows-live, games-on-demand, pc, prince-of-persia-the-forgotten-sands, rockstar-games, thq, ubisoft

Reader Comments (38)

So whats the release date for Red Dead Revolver?

Seriously.

Off-Topic, I need help guys, Modnation Racers or Split/Second? I wanna buy one but know what to get :O

Dude I just played the demo for Split Second and I would definitely buy Split Second right now.

Day and date...

I toss and turn; I keep stressing my mind (mind)

Don't be hatin' on the Forgotten Sands, now.

I thought it was a solid entry for the franchise. The platforming was fun, if a little easy, and the combat was better than ever.

Definitely worth the $40 I paid.

The easy Platinum was a nice bonus as well.

(opinions)

It was ok, but if you already played Assassin's Creed II you don't really need Forgotten Sands.

Say what you want but at least they're trying right? They could easily give up on GFW and focus all their attention on Xbox Live but they're at least trying to make GFW a viable platform in the wake of Steam, Impulse, and Direct 2 Drive. For that I at least give them some credit.

Exactly. I've criticized Microsoft in the past for a lot of things, and it's true that they've made many mistakes, but one of their consistent qualities they've had for a while now is never giving up on what they've made.

Very interesting from MS, considering they would like to kill off PC gaming and have their Xbox reign supreme. I'd like them to treat the PC as well as the Xbox, but that's just wishful thinking.

MS is trying? They still move their titles to be exclusive to XBox, if needed (ie. Alan Wake). PC still receive second-rate treatment, comparatively.

I'd rather they fail so they don't split the market. The last thing I want to be doing is buying some games on Steam, some on GFWoD, and others on some other service and having to keep track of 3 different kinds of activation, gamer score, and whatever else. If Live! is any indication, you'll be getting less deals/freebies on GFW than on Steam. Maybe in the short term, GFW will offer interesting things, but if it becomes dominant, you can bet they'll put the choker on your wallet. Plus if you buy games on/encourage Steam, you'll be able to play your games on multiple platforms, vs GFW where you'll be stuck on W.

Gaming on a mac may be all you need if you already own consoles, that's the position I'm in.

I don't know...for better or worse, Microsoft likes to be extremely ambitious when it comes to anything related to "online". Sure, MS messes up a lot at times, but they've never necessarily abandoned their own service and they always continue to add on what's already established.

Lately there's been a lot of talk about digital distribution taking over the industry, and if this does, in fact, happen, I could probably see GFW OnDemand actually taking off to seriously challenge the likes of Steam, but then again, I also see them making a mistake in the process, such as charging people for things that really shouldn't be charged for, ever.

We'll see...

*cough*playsforsure*cough*

Not that it's relevant at all to anyone but me, but for someone who hasn't played it, it's sad that Gears of War will probably never come to digital distribution on PC.

But at least GFW should have Fable III "day-and-date" whenever the hell that may be.

I'd prefer hard copies. I even buy Steam-required games in hard copies. Takes me hours (even days) to download a full game on DSL broadband. And I don't only download one thing at a time...

thanks for the unbiased report!

Wow, so GFW is now going to do what EVERYONE ELSE has already been doing.

I guess Microsoft doesn't consider Steam or D2D or any other distribution service. If you don't consider the competition then you don't seem as irrelevant, huh?

Dude Xbox Live is building up a pretty legit digital distribution library and I don't need those dumb microsoft points to buy those game either

Prince of PErsia: Warrior Within on PC, is it good?

-Got first and third one on PS2, need WW but cant find it. $2.50 is an awesome price.. but is it good on PC X_X

I'm giving those two games a shot at that price. I bet MS would love to use sands of time to have become a bigger player in the downloadeable pc games realm at this point. Glad I was the first to think of that one ! ;)

I know it's lame to reply to your own post, but free game alert ! It's called tinker, hope it's half decent...

Of all these games, I'm only interested in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. On GFW it's listed as Windows 7 compatible. On Steam, it's Windows 2000/XP only.

I'd hope that Ubisoft tweaked the game code for Windows 7 and that the same updates will become available on Steam, but something tells me they won't. I even wonder if Microsoft owns the Windows 7 patch.

That's cool, glad to see that AoE III is now avaiable on-line. I'm still wary of buying anything from their service though. I mean, GFWL is only supported in 26 countries. What the hell Microsoft? We get fully localized Windows and game releases here, yet if I put my real country under my Live account I can't play on-line (and if you register your game cd-key under an unsupported country account, it's wasted forever). I'm not even sure I can even buy anything from them, since my registered address obviously won't match my credit card address (if anyone in the same situation has tried, I'd love to hear the results).

I;m glad that GFW is still going today.

It's nice being able to get achievements on my PC and have them show up in my gamerscore, regardless of me looking at it from my PC or my 360.

So what is this doing that Steam doesn't already?

Competition = good for consumers. I'm not sure what is up with attitude that we have Steam so we don't need anything else. I like competitive services like GFWL and Impulse and D2D because they keep Steam honest. I also like my cheevos.

Well ya I agree, but GFWL hasn't competed with Steam in any regard in my opinion. Especially when it comes to doing weekend sales and such.

Games For Windows Live - the definition of "trying too hard"

The reason they aren't giving up on it is because they Can't incorporate Achievements, and Gamer score to your Gamer card when using steam

To little to late MS. You dumped the PC platform and Valve picked up your slack and made it all the better. Go back to your Xbox, no one wants Windows Live for their games

it doesnt even work right for me, no matter what I do - I cant stay connected in Halo 2 for Vista longer then 15 mins. Annoying playing the same 15 minutes of a level. >.>

Ok XBL On Demand....your turn.

I am interested in the 2 POP games, I hope they did something to make them full screen and a bit higher res.

lol

I may be an idiot, but when I saw the title of this article, I thought it was about the magazine. I was actually disappointed to see that it was about the actual Windows service.

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GFW on Demand now offers day-and-date releases

Reader Comments (38)

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