Microsoft Extends Games with Gold Promotion to Xbox One

It wasn’t too long ago that Microsoft announced that it would give subscribers of its Xbox LIVE Gold service two free games a month as part of the Games With Gold promotion. That promotion guaranteed users two free games a month if they had an Xbox LIVE Gold account and an Xbox 360. Thankfully, Microsoft has now confirmed that it plans to extend the offer to users with an Xbox One as well.

Larry Hyrb, Microsoft’s Programming Director for Xbox LIVE, announced the change yesterday on Twitter. Unfortunately, Hyrb didn’t go into details about the program addition, saying only that users should expect more details “in 2014.”

While extending the program to more users is the obvious thing to do, especially since PlayStation Plus subscribers with a PS3 already enjoy this type of perk, offering next to no details about the program isn’t likely to convince users who were planning to buy an Xbox One next week but forgo an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription.

Still, extending the deal will help Microsoft position Xbox LIVE Gold as a service worthy of its $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year price tag. The company has taken tons of criticism for forcing users to subscribe to Xbox LIVE Gold to use entertainment applications like Netflix and Hulu Plus. An Xbox LIVE Gold subscription also entitles users to exclusive demos and a series of weekly deals on games and downloadable content.

Today, Xbox 360 users with Xbox LIVE Gold get two games a month with the first one arriving on the 1st day of each month, followed by a second one on the 16th day of each month. Since introducing the program in July, Microsoft has given away older retail titles like Halo 3 and smaller Xbox LIVE Arcade titles like A World of Keflings.

Read: Xbox 360 Users to Continue Getting Free Games

Originally, Microsoft only planned to offer Games With Gold until the launch of the Xbox One, however it announced that it would continue the promotion indefinitely this past October.

The Xbox One launches on November 22nd for $499. Unfortunately, pre-orders remain sold out. However,  Microsoft has confirmed that its retail partners will have extra consoles on hand for users who couldn’t get a pre-order.

VMware extends its cloud datacenter

Summary: Where there was one, there will be three.

VMware is banking on the fact that demand for its vCloud service hybrid, announced at VMworld San Francisco, only six weeks ago will continue to grow, especially in the United States.

Existing datacenter company in Las Vegas will be accompanied by a bicoastal pair of facilities, one in Sterling, Virginia and the other in Santa Clara, California.

Regionalization the provision of services in the cloud should enable customers to be more comfortable with the vCloud solution implementation. It also brings the possibility of regional duplication for the addition of disaster recovery and business continuity solutions.

The hybrid solution allows customers to operate their own clouds with a connecting seamlessly to VMware public cloud. Access to the vCloud hybrid market application service means that customers will be able to deploy tested and approved applications from the leading providers with minimal noise and annoyance and along with the announcement on Monday of new hybrid cloud management tools, pull together to give a greater customer confidence in the fledgling service.

In December, the new vSphere web client must be available to allow direct management of the hybrid service vCloud, VMware users simplified global management experience.

But the aspirations of VMware go far beyond the borders of the United States; They also announced its expansion of the hybrid cloud service in Europe, with its first datacenter opened in the United Kingdom. A small group of customers waiting to go into beta testing on the premises of this quarter with general availability of the service across Europe, aimed at general availability in the first quarter of 2014.

This jump in with both feet cloud service provider's business could well encourage a significant percentage of VMware customers to rely on the cloud, especially those in medium-sized market space looking for ways effective and profitable to expand their operational capabilities with minimal capital expenditure.

With more than 20 years of writings published about technology, as well as performances by industry as everything from a developer's database to CTO, David Chernicoff has earned the term "veteran" in the world of technology.