3. Limited buddy list capacity - Would MySpace or Facebook be popular social networking platforms if they limited the number of friends you could have? I would guess not. If Live is about social gaming, why don't we get more space on our friends list? We are paying $50 a year for the service after all.

Who has 100 gaming contacts? Not most people, I would guess. But my list is full. Over 80 of my friends signed onto Live in the last 24 hours. I know every single gamer on my list and accept no random friend requests. A large chunk of my list is of people I've met in real-life. Shadowrun and HALO 2 (PC) are now coming out. I'm not going to have much room to add newfound friends to my list. I'll have to cull some longtime friends from my list now.

2. It's Vista only for now. No XP - Sorry rest of the world. Since you need to be in a game to run GFW - Live, you won't be using GFW - Live on Windows XP. That's because the major launch titles, Shadowrun and HALO 2 are exclusive to Windows Vista. (Note that Shadowrun is cross-platform and will be available for XBOX 360 also).

Funny thing, though. You can't use the "Game Advisor" which is a main link promoted on almost every webpage on the Games for Windows website. It gives you an error message if you are using Vista: "Windows XP Game Advisor requires the use of the Windows 98/ME/2000/XP operating system and the Internet Explorer 6 browser." I'm confused. Do you or do you not want me to run Vista?

1. Limited or no third party developers are using GFW - Live. - This is the biggest problem that gamers (and perhaps Microsoft) will have with GFW - Live. It looks like Microsoft Game Studios is the only one using GFW - Live. Shadowrun and HALO 2 (PC) are both products of Microsoft Game Studios. Great, but where are the Valve's, the iD's, the Ubisoft's? There are a lot of major PC games hitting the market soon (Quake Wars, Medal of Honor, Assassin's Creed, and perhaps Unreal Tournament 3). How can GFW - Live make it when Valve's Steam grows in popularity and major games like Starcraft II don't have GFW - Live support. The hit games are out there. The hit services are out there. How is Microsoft going to win the PC gamer over? The current version of GFW - Live won't do it. There's only two Games for Windows - Live titles. Go to the gamesforwindows.com website and you won't see any other GFW - Live titles mentioned. Will there be any more GFW - Live titles launched this year?