Celebrating success with its Games with Gold program in which it gives away aging (but still memorable) Xbox 360 games to Xbox Gold members each month, Microsoft has announced that it's extending the initiative beyond the originally planned end date.  Easily compared to aspects of Sony's PlayStation Plus program, Games with Gold has been overwhelmingly embraced by a large majority of Xbox 360 players.  GamesRadar sums things up:

Microsoft’s Games with Gold promotion will no longer come to an end on December 31, the company announced today. Instead, Games with Gold will be offered “as an ongoing benefit for Xbox Live Gold members on Xbox 360”.  Games with Gold was originally announced as a limited-time promotion offering every Xbox Live Gold member two free Xbox 360 game downloads per month until the end of 2013.

No word on the addition of Xbox One games to the program, but did you really expect that?  I think it's great that Microsoft is going to continue giving away free games.  Early criticisms of the program mostly revolved around the dated nature of the freebies (Halo 3 is the current title available for free and it was originally released in 2007), but if you haven't played these games, then they're new to you and an excellent value.  Considering that Microsoft expects to continue to sell new Xbox 360 consoles well into the Xbox One's life, newcomers to the X360 are primed to enjoy a free library of titles.  What's not to like about that?