UK - 7th September 2006 — If you love your friends, enjoy spending time chatting to them, playing games , downloading exclusive content and listening to music with them - then you’ll really love Xbox Live™. The great news is that Xbox® is feeling extra sociable this month and offering European gamers a chance to experience Xbox Live™ for over a week, absolutely free, from 20th to 29th September, 2006. The free week of Xbox Live is sponsored by Windows Live™ Spaces.

Xbox Live is the world’s premiere, fully connected gaming service with more than three million members. It lets you find your friends, play with or against them through a broadband internet connection wherever they are and chat with them through a headset as you play.

Multiplayer, fully connected gaming action, including the ability to choose from a full calendar of events such as competitions and Game With Fame sessions, is usually only available to Xbox Live Gold members. However, on 20th September at 00.01, Xbox will flick the switch, giving gamers in Europe full access and the chance to see what everyone is talking about, until the free trial ends on 29th September at 23.59.

To make sure you can access Xbox Live during the free week, all you need to do is plug a broadband cable into the back of your Xbox 360 console. This will give you the standard Xbox Live Silver membership which will be upgraded automatically on 20th September. Then you’ll get instant access to connected, multiplayer gaming, retro-style Xbox Live Arcade titles, the latest game demos, movie trailers, music videos plus participate in all the exciting events on the Xbox Live Calendar!

There are hundreds of titles available for the Xbox 360 that you can try out over Xbox Live, including Project Gotham Racing 3®, Top SpinTM 2, Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis, Saints Row™, EA SportsTM 2006 FIFA World CupTM, Perfect Dark ZeroTM and KameoTM: Elements of Power plus easy to play, retro style Xbox Live Arcade games such Pac-Man, Street Fighter® II’ Hyper Fighting and Texas Hold ‘em.

As well as enjoying multiplayer game play, there will also be a fun-packed schedule of activities taking place during the free week. Gamers look forward to the Halo 2 Winning Weekend, Mystery Gamer, the PGR3 Developer Showdown plus newcomers nights, the chance to win prizes and much more.

Xbox really is the place to hang out - since Xbox Live launched in November 2002, more than 3 million gamers have spent over 2 billion hours on the network playing games online with their friends around the world and downloading more than 50 million pieces of gaming and entertainment content from Xbox Live Marketplace. Plus 1,300,000 text and voice messages are sent via Xbox Live every day – a figure set to explode with the launch of the Xbox Live Vision camera on 6th October in Europe.

Stay tuned to the Xbox Live Calendar pages on Xbox.com in the coming weeks for more information on the schedule of events taking place during the free week of Xbox Live.

News-Source: www.gamesindustry.biz