If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Silver Live demos restricted

Wait a week for access.

Microsoft has confirmed that Silver Xbox Live members will have to wait a week to access free downloadable content.

Restricted downloads will have a red circle with a slash through it to make it clear, and a message that will pop up confirming its exclusivity to paying Gold subscribers.

Title updates (or patches in real language) should still be applied automatically for everyone connected to Live, but content like demos or the recent free plasmid pack for BioShock will be unobtainable for a week.

"This is not done to annoy our Silver members - limited time exclusive access to content is just one of the many benefits of having a Gold Xbox Live account," said Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, MS community champion, on his blog.

The autumn Live update was applied yesterday and revamped the dashboard appearance and added downloadable Xbox titles to the Marketplace.

More interestingly it also added support for Xvid and DivX playback.