Free Xbox Live Gold This Weekend

Presumably as a way to further promote the new Xbox dashboard, Microsoft is offering all XBL Silver members free Xbox Live Gold this weekend. 

So now, Silver members can check out all the new stuff (and the old stuff they haven't checked out yet, of course) like LOVEFILM, Video Kinect, and Facebook. Of course, they also get to play some multiplayer over XBL. 

On top of this, Zune is offering some discounts as well as some free stuff. You can get 40% movies like Green Lantern, The Bourne Identity, and The Hangover. You can also watch a free 10-minute preview of The Hangover II.

You can also win some prizes, such as 8,000 Microsoft Points, a XBox 360 Kinect bundle, and a Samsung TV. Good stuff!

The reviews of the new dashboard have been pretty mixed. Some were able to jump right on, download the thing, and go. Others had to keep trying, and were blocked from XBL until they could get through and download the new dashboard. Then, once they got the darn thing they kept getting booted from XBox Live. Others yet found their Xbox 360s essentially bricked.

So this is also a bit of a PR move for Microsoft. It's not clear what effect this will have on Silver members, as the new features aren't that much of an improvement over the old one. The really cool stuff (HBO Go, UFC, etc.) has yet to be added.

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