Depending on how you view it, Microsoft is again stepping up its efforts on the Games for Windows Live platform, or GfW if you like. The focus this time around is increasing the anti-piracy measures to make the PC a more attractive platform to developers who claim that they lose too much revenue developing titles for the PC platform.

The latest release of GfW will include server side authentication that will be required to play online as well as zero day piracy protection, both of which should help make the GfW platform more attractive to developers.

In addition, users will be able to save their personal data and settings on the server that can be retrieved when they login to the GfW Live environment. Users will be able to access their data and setting from any computer, which is quite an advance for the GfW platform.

Microsoft is trying hard to grow the GfW platform, as the company sees that this could be an area of growth that has been over shadowed by efforts such as Xbox Live. Bringing the Xbox Live style experience to the PC is what GfW is all about, but so far it needs more work to be really attractive to users.