MS to offer Xbox Live Gold subscribers content first

Microsoft's director of programming, Larry Hryb, has revealed that the company plans to make non-paying users of the Xbox Live service wait longer to access game demos and trailers.

A new trailer for Gears of War launched on the service this week - but so far, it's only available to those who pay an annual or monthly fee for a Gold subscription. Silver account holders will have to wait "about a week", according to a post on Hryb's blog.

"This is going to happen more and more (Gold getting things before Silver), so you may want to think about upgrading if you want all the latest and greatest trailers, demos etc.," Hryb wrote.

More than 4 million gamers now use Xbox Live, and Microsoft expects that figure to hit 6 million by June. Over 70 million pieces of content, including demos and game and movie trailers, have been downloaded from Xbox Live Marketplace since its launch last November.