New Games for Windows Features Coming with Grand Theft Auto 4 PC

Microsoft celebrates the two-year anniversary of its PC games branding this month.

By Chris Pereira, 09/22/2008

Games for Windows has hardly been the de facto PC branding it once upon a time hoped to be, but Microsoft is still making strides towards achieving that goal. The GFW initiative turns two this month, cuing Microsoft's announcement that Grand Theft Auto 4 -- releasing on PC in November as a GFW-branded game -- will bring with it "a revitalized Games for Windows Live experience." This upgrade includes an out-of-game client and marketplace, two of the most-requested features for the service since its launch.

Over the past few years, Steam and Steam Community have managed to gobble up much of the marketplace for the online PC gaming experience, becoming the standard, go-to service for buying games and maintaining a friends list for many. Microsoft's going to have its work cut out for it in their renewed attempt to go up against Steam and Stardock's new Impulse service. Of course, GFW does have the benefit of being plugged into Xbox Live and having Achievements. And don't forget, it's now free. In addition to GTA4, several other upcoming big-name releases will fall under the GFW umbrella, including Fallout 3, Dawn of War II, and Quantum of Solace.

What do you think? Will the new promised features of an actual GFW Live client and marketplace be enough to bring you back, or has the service already become irrelevant to the PC gaming space?

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Another attempt by Microsoft to try and win some PC gamers. Somehow I doubt they will manage to pull off anyone from Steam, but you never know. I still remember when they wanted people to play online, and I'm sure a lot of others do as well and will just dodge this attempt. I'm just sad Fallout 3 is gonna be using this.

Unfortunately there's a few developers tied to Microsoft, and Microsoft will pay to get people under GFW, so it's very likely there will be more big-name titles under GFW and not Steam.

Which is a shame...it really is M$ here. You can always buy a game and still put it on your Steam games list so you can chat on Steam while ingame, but it's just really nice to have it all on your download list, in case you lose a disc.

Does GFW offer digital downloads of these games or are they all disc-only? They'll never beat Steam without a good digital download service.

Also, Rockstar's games are already on Steam, so I would assume GTA4 will get to Steam sometime soon after its release, if not right away...

I think the marketplace will allow players to purchase the games and download them. Then again we're talking about M$ and they tried to charge PC gamers for Multiplayer in the year 2008 so it's possible that the market place will be just like Amazon or Gamestop.

if it meant that the game would feature cross-platform multiplayer, there wouldn't be any problem.

but anyway, Dawn of War II will be GFW and it's coming to steam, so GTAIV should come too (can't buy it over Steam though).

I don't even know what the marketplace offers right now, but achievements & stuff don't attract me if they don't reflect ingame.

Wait, Dawn of War II will be GFW and also on Steam?  Then why wouldn't GTA4 be available on Steam?  All the previous GTA games and Rockstar's library is available on Steam already...

Well this is kind of a shame, Microsoft will try to force people to pay for the add on content I am sure. I bet that will go over as well as charging for multiplayer did. And my neighbor won't be to happy with Dawn of War 2 being on GFW after I told him about my troubles with it and Microsoft trying to get me to pay for xbox live instead of giving me my free GfWL.