Microsoft has vowed to improve Games for Windows Live after acknowledging that the service has kicked off to a "rocky start." According to Kevin Unangst, the senior producer of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, the service launched with the right intent, which was to bring achievements, friends, multiplayer gaming and matchmaking to the PC. Unfortunately, the company made a few missteps along the way.
Unangst partially blamed the fact that the platform was originally designed to complement Microsoft's console business more than PCs. Perhaps more importantly, the company didn't back its service with high quality games. "A network by itself isn't valuable," Unangst said, "there needs to be great games to take advantage [of it]." As an example, he pointed to what Bungie and Microsoft accomplished with Halo and Xbox Live.
Despite the shortcomings of Games for Windows Live, Microsoft isn't ready to throw in the towel yet. "I think the underpinnings are great, I think it's going to continue to get better. We launched a new Marketplace which was great, we're selling Live and non-Live enabled games." Going forward, Microsoft will encourage feedback about the service from developers, such as the folks behind Age of Empires Online and Fable 3.