Is Microsoft diluting the value of the Xbox Live brand?

Before Windows Phone 7, to me the Xbox Live brand meant online, multi-player first person shooters such as Halo and Call of Duty.

Now it means Little Acorns and Sally’s Spa, two games which could not possibly be any further from the FPS ethos if they tried.

With the news that Solitaire, Minesweeper and Majong becoming Xbox Live enabled, there exists the possibility that your mother may soon have a bigger gamer score than yourself!

It is not new information that Xbox Live on Windows Phone has not been the draw which many of us or Microsoft has hoped, and with the games released this is no surprise,  but with the service expanding basically to all desktop and laptop users with Windows 8, it seems Microsoft remains intent on diluting the meaning of the service which has been so successful on the console over the last 10 years.

May we suggest to Microsoft to stop attaching the brand to childish, simplistic games, and reserving it for big budget titles for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, even it it means fewer titles are released. This would also have the advantage of opening up the field more for indie developers, who are already likely to be making these simpler games, and who will then not have to compete with an Xbox Live enabled squirrel game.

Do our readers agree? Let us know below.