Epic Games won't be bringing Gears of War 2 to the PC. That's their story and they're stickin' to it. It's "definitely" not happening, swears designer Cliff Bleszinski, pointing to a worsening PC gaming environment.

"The person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know [BitTorrent] to know all the elements so they can pirate software," says Bleszinski. "Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC."

Hmph! Thanks a lot, assholes. Oh, not you, Cliff. We were talking to the dude stealing your game.

Gears Of War 2 - Cliff Bleszinski Q&A [TVG]

After two underwhelming years spent trying to be just as essential to PC gaming as Xbox Live is to console, Grand Theft Auto IV might just take Games for Windows and kiss away all its tears of frustration. Or, if Microsoft drops the ball, it could be another nail in the coffin of PC gaming, writes Wired. That might piss off PC gamers who are just fine with Steam and are tired of hearing more talk about how their way of life is going extinct. But Microsoft's exclusive control of GTA:IV for the PC does have implications for PC gaming at large.

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Reader Simon wrote in to us this weekend to let us know that he'd received an e-mail, one targeted at "subscribers to the MS download email service", that listed Halo 3 as one of the downloadable demos that take advantage of DirectX. Does that mean that Halo 3 is confirmed for a Games For Windows release? Not so fast, pal.

Sure, it's entirely possible, given that Halo and Halo 2 both made the Xbox 360 to PC jump about two years after their respective console releases. And, sure, games like Gears of War have been inadvertently "announced" for the Windows platform in marketing materials, but you're really jumping to conclusions here. You think Microsoft is going to let something like this leak?

After all, only about 98.44% of Microsoft-based rumours are true. We're following up with the company to get our sweet taste of carefully worded denial right now.

Over the weekend we posted a rumor about Xbox Live's second class citizens having access to online play on select titles. It's not a rumour anymore, as Microsoft has confirmed that Silver level Live members can indeed have online visitation rights with their Xbox 360 buddies and not just on the weekends. It's all part of an unannounced promotion, we learned.

In tandem with the announcement that MS was "taking off the Gold-only restriction for multiplayer gaming over Games for Windows LIVE", cross platform games (Xbox 360/PC) will be free for all for a limited time, according to a Microsoft spokesperson. Get crackin' online gamers. It won't last long, they say.

As can be witnessed by their decision to, after only a year, cut their losses and start offering the service for free, Microsoft's Games for Windows Live initiative hasn't exactly set the world on fire. But just because it hasn't, doesn't mean that it can't. What could help spice things up a little? How about, oh, the ability to play XBLA games on both your 360 and PC? Would that help? It's something Microsoft are obviously thinking about, because after being asked about the subject by 1UP's Shawn Elliot, Microsoft's Kevin Unangst replies:

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Games for Windows - Live multiplayer features are free, effective today, Microsoft announced at today's GameFest 2008 conference in Seattle.

The move to free means that achievements, enhanced "truskill" matchmaking, cross-platform play with the Xbox 360, voice and text chat, friends lists, are all now free to Windows gamers. This change to free is for all Games for Windows LIVE titles, past and future.

Microsoft also announced plans to introduce Games for Windows - Live marketplace this fall, which will include free and paid downloadable game content, demos, trailers and "more". Finally, the company said they are working to streamline the interface for the PC and reduce technical requirements for developers. Too little, too late? Too early to tell, I say.

In other news from GameFest, DirectX 11 was unveiled.

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When I start an open letter to the world, I begin with "Dear So-and-so."

When Microsoft vp John Schappert began his open letter to PC gamers today, he started with "Growth and Opportunities in PC Gaming".

Weird start. Nevertheless, Schappert has issued what is basically a Microsoft-penned report on the state of PC gaming. Pretty rosy. No mention of World of Warcraft or Steam or The Sims.

But some good stuff nonetheless, like:

Other popular titles such as "Crysis" and "Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures" have sold and shipped more than 1 million copies, respectively. "Hellgate: London" now has more than 1 million active subscribers.

And

Today I'm excited to report that Microsoft and a growing community of the gaming industry's leading publishers, hardware manufacturers and retailers have made the Windows-based PC the largest gaming platform in the world.

Read the full letter after the jump.

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Michael Delman, corporate VP of Microsoft's global marketing communications group, will be taking over as corporate VP of global marketing for the company's Interactive Entertainment business - in short, Delman's taking over the role that Jeff Bell recently announced he would be vacating in spring.

Delman starts in August, reporting to Don Mattrick, and will helm global marketing strategy for the Xbox and Games for Windows businesses, specifically Microsoft Games Studios titles, Xbox Live and platform growth.

This means you will most likely see portraits of Delman up here with increasing frequency come winter's end, possibly with glowing red eyes photoshopped onto him, and hopefully alongside juicy quotes. Welcome, Mr. Delman!

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Sega and Petroglyph's real time strategy sci-fi game Universe At War: Earth Assault was all patched up today, bringing with it an exhaustive list of changes, tweaks and fixes. The most notable? The saucer's build time was reduced from 30 to 28 seconds. Almost as exciting was the addition of Xbox 360 versus PC cross-play in Ranked, Quickmatch and Conquer the World game modes, something that should make it much, much easier to find a game for Universe At War players.

For the full list of changes implemented in patch 3, hit the jump for details.

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Though it's currently trendy to declare the imminent and grisly demise of the PC gaming market, there are some legitimate concerns amid all of the sensationalism. Much-publicised NPD numbers showed retail PC sales slumping by $65 million between 2006 and 2007, while the console gaming market continues to burgeon year-over-year. While it's quite true that these numbers quantify only PC retail box sales and not subscription revenue - like how much WoW makes every month - there are issues at hand that are harder to quantify with raw data.

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