Here's some good news for Xbox fans who're eagerly waiting for the debut of the fabled Xbox 720 - Xbox Live Gold is free (yes, you heard us right) for the entire weekend and if you were late for the party, it's okay as you still have time - it's going to stay free until 10am PT on Monday.

So long you are an Xbox Live (Silver) subscriber and you're living in the U.S., Latin America, Japan and Canada, you'll be able to enjoy special features generally accessible by paid Xbox Live Gold account holders, including online multiplayer gaming, Video Kinect and a whole load of goodies such as weapons double XP for Call of Duty Black Ops II and double XP for Assassin's Creed 3 and Far Cry 3.

It's a good move by Microsoft but so long video and music services continue to require an additional subscription and remain behind the Gold paywall (Xbox Live Gold subscriptions cost users $60 per year), it'll be difficult for Microsoft to catch up with Sony, when the latter releases PlayStation 4 (and its souped up online services) in the market.

As for games, multiplayer games should be made free and should not be built around this Gold dependency. Exclusive titles are good but Gears of War and Halo are not cool anymore and it'll take more than these titles to keep gamers straying elsewhere.

Come on, Microsoft, make Xbox Live Gold free. Especially when you earn money from the ads that plaster the dashboard.

If the software giant is to have any hope of letting its Xbox 720 compete with PlayStation 4, it'll have to make this weekend permanent. Especially after rumors are running wild that PlayStation 4 GPU is superior to Xbox 720