At E3 2007 today, we met with Kevin Unangst, the global director of Games for Windows, and Chris Early, the new general manager for Games for Windows Live. Though they didn't go into specifics regarding Microsoft's plans for the future of the PC as a gaming platform, they did share some news and gave us a few insights into where it's headed.

The biggest news for many of you is the announcement that GFW Live, currently Vista-only, will be headed to Windows XP. This was actually sort-of announced in the MS press conference on Tuesday night, when Cliff Blezinski announced that the PC version of Gears of War, which uses GFW Live, will be available on Windows XP as well as Vista. It sort of went unnoticed, but we have confirmed that indeed, GFW Live will hit XP this year. Although Early and Unangst were quick to point out that Vista has sold over 40 million copies and they figure 10 million of those are core gamers, they recognize that XP still has a huge installed base and will continue to for some time. Don't expect DirectX 10 to come to XP, though.