Microsoft's Internet Gaming Zone announced today that it is planning to expand its offerings to gamers, with events such as the introduction of its first two premium games, Microsoft Fighter Ace and Asheron's Call. Both games were designed specifically for the Internet. The first is a World War II dogfighting game that can support up to 100 people in one game, due in beta this July. Asheron's Call is an epic role-playing game for thousands of players at a time, using a first-person perspective and due in the first quarter of 1998. These games will be free for download and, unlike other games on the Zone, carry daily or monthly usage fees.

　　LucasArts, Hasbro Interactive, and Microsoft will also bring new games to the Zone, with 20 titles due by the end of the year. These include Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and Star Wars Rebellion, expected this summer and fall, along with Hasbro's Scrabble, Risk, Pictionary, and Battleship. Of course, most of Microsoft's upcoming holiday release titles will be available there; these will include Flight Simulator '98, Age of Empires, and Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far.

　　The Zone will also start offering its players access to DWANGO this summer. DWANGO, another online gaming service available in approximately 20 US cities, specializes in low-latency, fast-action titles and features twitch games like Duke Nukem 3D and Doom.

　　In addition, the free online gaming service from the computer industry's favorite monolith now boasts around 275,000 members. By contrast, Mplayer announced last week that its free service had attracted about 100,000 players and TEN, which has a monthly fee, told GS News in May that it had garnered over 30,000 members.