Try Xbox Live free for a week

Put off Xbox Live by subscription fees and tales of loud Americans screaming into your headset from the other side of the globe? Well, now’s your chance to put any superstitions to rest, or prove yourself right, as a whole free week of Gold membership will be available later this month.

Xbox has teamed up with Windows Live Spaces (a service not dissimilar to the Myspace behemoth) to provide Europeans with seven days of multiplayer madness from September 20-29. You'll also have access to loads of free content too, including a hefty stack of game demos to download, and a series of special online activities are scheduled to take place over the week - including the PGR3 Developer Showdown, the Halo 2 Winning Weekend and, the mysterious sounding, Mystery Gamer.

If you can put down your Rockstar Presents Table Tennis rackets for a few minutes though, players are also invited to set up their own Xbox-themed Windows Live space and “show off their profile, build a reputation and check out opponents using specially developed Windows Live gadgets, which display their Xbox Live gamer card and details their recent games”. There's already a sample page, touted by the Xbox team.

The trial, which starts at 12.01am on September 20 and ends 23.59pm on September 29, also coincides nicely with this years X06 showcase, where developers, publishers and journalists will gather in Barcelona (it’s a tough life) to hear all the latest Xbox related news and see the newest games in action.