Major Nelson reports that the free Xbox Live week has started. I tested it out with a bunch a of games and I can confirm that it works on both my US and EU accounts.

I just heard from the Live operations team that they threw the big switch that now allows Silver users free access to Xbox Live multi-player for the next week. While the accounts will still ‘look’ Silver, we enabled those accounts to access Xbox 360 multi-player just like Gold accounts.

Oh, and here’s a bonus you won’t hear about anywhere else: you can also play some original Xbox Live multi-player games on your Xbox 360 with your Silver account, assuming of course that they are on the BC list. (Note: this won’t work with ALL original Xbox Live titles, but it does work with Halo 2.)

This week is E3 week, which probably doesn’t need any further explanation. This year is special though since there will be a shitload of new Marketplace content, Live will be free and well there will be a ton of events. Keep a close eye on Xboxic since we’ll report as much as we can as fast as we can.

Edit: Silver members still can’t send messages via Xbox.com. Just so you know.