Xbox Live Gold is Free for the Weekend, Starting Now

Xbox Live Silver members, prepare to be lured. Microsoft’s letting you play online and do all the other things Xbox Live Gold members get to do, from today until 12 p.m. Eastern time on Monday. If you’re in Europe, the promotion starts later, November 25, and runs until November 30. Wouldn’t it make sense to do it the other way around, with the promotion running over Thanksgiving weekend for Americans? Or is Microsoft concerned that too many people will be out of town? Anyway, this isn’t the first time Microsoft has opened its doors to the lot of you; in August, T-Mobile sponsored a few days of Xbox Live Gold for the masses.

But now there’s a clear purpose for offering the free Xbox Live weekend. Earlier this week, Microsoft added Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm for Xbox Live Gold members. Surely, Microsoft wants to show off these new services in hopes of grabbing a few more paid subscribers. Sadly, they’ll be disappointed that Twitter and Facebook are kind of lame on the service (it’s pretty much impossible to type on the controller), and that you can’t listen to Last.fm while playing games. They’ll probably get more subscriptions from people who bought Modern Warfare 2 and quickly become addicted to the online multiplayer. [via PC World]