Games for Windows Live has Epic Games Unconvinced

The latest 1UP Yours podcast features Epic Game’s Mark Rein and Tim Sweeny as they give their thoughts on Games for Windows Live (formerly known as Live Anywhere) and why they’re not big fans of it as of yet.

According to Sweeny, “The key problem with the service right now is that any feature that Microsoft implements and charges for, the developer can’t implement themselves. As a PC developer, we’re used to having complete freedom and defining our feature set—what we can give gamers and what they can do in our game. That’s a big change, quite a huge change, for PC developers to now have features that we simply can’t do.”

Games for Windows Live is Microsoft’s upcoming service that will allow gamers everywhere to utilize Xbox Live from a Windows Vista PC, Windows Mobile phones, and Java-enabled phones. Players will have many options including the abilities to keep track of friends, send/receive messages, purchase XBLA titles and earn extra achievements. Microsoft is also planning the introduction of cross-platform based titles, with the first title to make use of the feature being Microsoft Game Studio’s Shadowrun.

Stay tuned to Advanced Media Network.