Media Contact:
Brooke Hammerling
Zeno Group
415-596-5428
brooke.hammerling@zenogroup.com
XFIRE™ LAUNCHES FREE, LIGHTNING-FAST FILE DOWNLOAD SYSTEM
P2P System Features High-Speed Downloads, Push Technology,
and Pause & Resume Capabilities
Menlo Park, CA and Scottsdale, AZ – February 14, 2005 – Xfire, Inc., the fastest growing online gaming platform and community, today announced the launch of its revolutionary file download system at the DEMO@15! conference in Scottsdale, AZ. Xfire’s free download system is seamlessly integrated into the existing Xfire architecture and will deliver patches, mods, demos, trailers, and other files to users via a closed peer-to-peer distribution system. Being a closed P2P network allows Xfire to ensure that all files are legal, free of viruses, and contain no spyware. Since Xfire already detects when a user starts playing a game, Xfire is also able to automatically pause the download and resume it when the user exits the game.
Using push technology, Xfire is able to automatically transmit files to the user’s PC while it is not in use. Users subscribe to channels that interest them. For example, a user subscribed to the “First Person Shooter Demos” channel will automatically receive the newest FPS game demo added to the Xfire file system. Alternatively, a user subscribed to patches will automatically receive all the latest game patches. No longer will gamers experience the frustration of finding out there’s a new patch required at the moment they try to play a game.
“Since the launch of Xfire, our goal has been to make it easier for gamers to communicate and play games with friends,” said Mike Cassidy, CEO of Xfire, Inc. “Now we’ll also make it easier for gamers to find and download the games and patches they want, whenever they want.”
"Xfire presented a new vision for how people will play online games at DEMO 2004," said Chris Shipley, Executive Producer of the DEMO Conferences, "and in the year that has followed, Xfire has shown its ability to match innovation with execution to become a leader in the gaming industry. That position will be further secured by Xfire's new peer-to-peer gamer file download product. It's easy to see why people who have seen the pre-release version of it are calling it 'TiVo for gamers.' "
Over the past year, Xfire has simplified gaming by launching the following features:
- Friend List for Gamers – Xfire users can see when their friends are online AND what games they are currently playing.
- One-Click Join – Xfire users can see what games their friends are playing and use the one-click join feature to play alongside their friends instantly.
- Xfire In-Game Messaging – Xfire users can send and receive instant messages while playing in many games without having to minimize or Alt-Tab out of the game.
- Stats Tracking – Through automatically updated player profiles, Xfire displays what games users are playing and how many hours they have played them.
- Game Server Browser - Xfire’s server browser allows users to choose a game server to join without running a separate application. Xfire also keeps track of gamers’ most recently visited servers, favorite servers, and even friends’ favorite servers.
To download Xfire for free, please visit http://www.xfire.com. Xfire is supported by advertisers and marketers trying to reach the age 18-34 male audience.
Xfire currently supports over 250 game titles, including: America’s Army: Operations, Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, Dark Age of Camelot, Dark Age of Camelot – Shrouded Isles, Diablo, Diablo II, DOOM 3, Dungeon Siege, EverQuest, Final Fantasy XI, Halo, Lineage, Lineage II, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Meridian 59, Neverwinter Nights, PlanetSide, Quake, Quake III Arena, Starcraft, The Temple of Elemental Evil, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004, Warcraft III, Wolfenstein – Enemy Territory, World of Warcraft, XEvil, and many more.
About Xfire
Xfire, Inc. (www.xfire.com) is the fastest growing online gaming platform and community in the world. Xfire helps gamers play with their friends much more easily. Xfire is also a server browser, IM, and file download system designed just for gamers. Xfire has over 1 million members in over 100 countries. The company was founded by Dennis "Thresh" Fong (World Champion of Quake) and Mike Cassidy (former CEO of Direct Hit). Xfire is funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and NEA.
About DEMO
The annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies. For more information on the DEMO conferences, visit http://www.demo.com.
