Following the announcement of Windows for Games Live we sat down with Rick Wickham, director for the Windows Gaming business to get the low down on the new service and Windows for Games.

The service, which will be launching on 18 May to coincide with the launch of Halo 2 on the PC, will allow PC gamers to compete online against each other and in June compete directly against Xbox Live gamers.

Available only to Windows Vista users, Games for Windows Live will connect Windows gamers to over 6 million gamers already in the Xbox Live community.

Like Xbox Live, Microsoft is offering both Silver and Gold memberships. There is no cost associated with signing up for a Silver membership and current Xbox Live Gold members will automatically have access to Gold features on Games for Windows Live titles.

"We plan to have the service offering an identical feature set to what Xbox Live subscribers already get by the end of the year. In that, we mean games demos, extra features, plenty of content and more", says Wickham.

Although gamers will be able to play PC to PC for free via the service the most exciting element will be the ability for PC gamers to play Xbox 360 gamers and vice versa.

Gold subscribers who pay the £39.99 annual subscription fee will be able to play Shadowrun, launching in June in cross-platform matches using a single service, while the card game UNO is expected later this year for those not into killing everything that moves.

"Seventy per cent of Xbox 360 gamers own a PC and so it makes sense for them to want to play on either console or PC. This way, gamers will be able to have a gamer tag that they can carry on building whether its on the PC or the Xbox 360", comments Wickham.

"Rather than steal Xbox 360 gamers, we hope that it will build the format's popularity over other offerings on the other consoles."

Although you won't be able to play yourself - that would be too weird after all - gamers will be able to sign in under a single members name so regardless of which format you are playing on you'll still be able to unlock achievement points or build on your gaming time.

“Five years ago, we began building a service that now defines the bar for online gameplay”, said Peter Moore, corporate vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft in a recent statement from the company.

But unlike the Xbox 360 Live service, which has been hugely popular, PC gamers already have a number of different ways to complete online against each other like Gamespy and Steam.

"Publishers forums are generally for core gamers, Windows for Games Live is aimed at the broader consumer. You can't currently do multiplayer with comprehensive voice and chat easily. Some apps work with some games while not with others, and unless you are a proficient gamer, setting this up can be a pain. Windows for Games Live does this from the start. We think this offering is going to be a compelling one."

But appealing to this broader consumer is only one of the areas Microsoft hopes to succeed.

"We have three prongs of attack; Rabid gamers, casual gamers, and real casual (ie cards) gamers to appeal to. Hopefully Windows for Games Live will appeal to all three. The Rabid [core] gamers because of the voice and chat connectivity along side the Xbox 360 support, the casual gamers because it will give them plenty of opportunity to play others in a dedicated area and real casual gamers because the entry level service is free and incredibly easy to use."

The Games for Windows Live is just one of the new initiatives from Microsoft in an attempt to raise awareness of PC games in your local game shop.

While console games dominate games shops up and down the country, Microsoft has finally come to the decision that PC games are under played, under branded and basically lacking identity.

"When you walk into a games shop whether it's in the UK or the US, it’s always a struggle to find the PC games", Wickham told Gamesdog.co.uk

Microsoft's answer therefore is to create a new branding initiative marked out with strong branding on the top of the box regardless of publisher and with it a set of standards that gamers can expect from the label be it published by Microsoft or Activision, EA, Ubisoft or any other publisher.

Wickham blames Windows XPs lack of gaming support for the state of PC games are in today; "XP has had its problems" he said. "Mainly that installing games takes too long, drivers have to be constantly managed and games are hidden in a folder that's hard to find."

Addressing these problems Windows Vista now has a Games folder alongside Documents, Music and Pictures so gamers can find them easily, Games for Windows games now also automatically support Widescreen displays and promise to be installed quicker:

"Halo 2 on the PC doesn’t even need to be installed to play", Wickham confirmed.

Other problems like the lack of a centralised controller have also been fixed. Gamers can now use the Xbox 360 complete with wireless dongle rather than having to rely on a third party device and the lengthy process of setting it up in game.

Further down the line Microsoft has confirmed that it will offer an automated patch service to keep gamers up to date.

So is this just an attempt to beat Sony and Nintendo and bag a larger part of the market worth £3 million in 2006?

"We want to grow the Microsoft pile, of course, but we think that the unified experience and the community that comes with the service is a real value proposition that no one out there is currently offering", Wickham said.

The service is likely to be a success when it does launch and although it will be slow to start off, Halo will be the only game for the first month, as more games and more publishers get involved it's only likely to get better.

Our personal experience with the two launch titles Shadowrun and Halo have so far been very good, and Shadowrun's ability to play Xbox 360 gamers mean you be able to end that age old argument of whether the mouse and keyboard is better than the controller once and for all.

"If we offer a better more connected package that gamers can be assured will meet certain standards they are going to want to play, if that's the case publishers are going to want to offer there titles on that platform and that can only be a good thing", Wickham concluded.