Xbox Live & Xfire Team Up For Extreme Gaming Giveaway

Microsoft today announced that Xbox Live, the world’s only online console games service, and Xfire, the leading online PC game platform, are teaming up to give Xbox Live and Xfire gamers a chance to win high-end prizes. Members of both Xbox Live and Xfire will be given the chance to win an extreme Xbox Live prize package that includes an Xbox, one year of free Xbox Live service, a library of Live-enabled games, a set of Spherex 5.1 surround sound speakers, an Xbox networking wireless-G adapter and a custom Plantronics Halo 2 headset. Those same members can also register for a chance to win a high-performance Compaq X GX5000 series Gaming PC complete with 17″ flat screen monitor. Registered Xbox Live and Xfire gamers who are over 17 years of age should visit Xbox Live for the official rules and to register for the Xbox Live prize package and xfire.com to register for the Xfire Compaq X gaming PC.

“We’ve admired how Xfire makes it easy for PC gamers to play online and how quickly they’ve built a great gamer community,” said Julia Miller, director, Xbox Live. “We’re pleased that Xfire will be introducing their community to our service, and we think that a lot of their users will really enjoy playing online with Xbox Live.”

Mike Cassidy, CEO of Xfire added, “We think Xbox Live is a terrific service, and many of our Xfire users are already Xbox Live gamers. We’re very excited about introducing Xbox Live gamers to Xfire for those times they want to connect to each other and play PC games.”

Xbox Live, which launched in the United States November 15th, 2002, allows gamers to play multiplayer Xbox games with other gamers worldwide via a broadband connection. With a built-in hard drive and Ethernet port, the Xbox console is the only video game system built from the ground up for online gaming. Xbox Live enables gamers to easily find their friends; talk to other players during gameplay through the Xbox Communicator headset; download current statistics and new levels and characters to their Xbox hard drive; and play online — all exclusive features to Xbox Live.

Xfire is a free tool that automatically tracks when and where gamers’ friends are playing PC games online. With one click, gamers can instantly join their friends’ games or play with friends of friends. Xfire also lets gamers message their friends who are in-game.