Dave Horvath
27 Nov 2007 12:59
Looking at the success of social networking sites such as MySpace, the fall update for Microsoft's Xbox Live dashboard will contain a few features that bring you and your friends closer together. Launching on December 4th, the update will soon allow Xbox Live customers to browse the friends list of your friends so you can see who else your friends play, in an effort to gain more playable online friends.
By default, this update will make your friends list available for browsing by default to only your friends, but also will let you custom tailor how you'd like to appear online. If you are 18 or older, you can set your profile to Everyone, which will allow anyone in the community to browse your profile, Friends Only, which if you're 13 or older can allow only your immediate friends to browse your categories, or Blocked, which of course will not allow anyone to browse your friends list.
No word on how the gamers will take this approach. There are some that feel they would like their gaming experiences to remain as private as possible and don't like the idea of anyone and everyone keeping tabs on their video game prowess. It remains to be seen if Microsoft will make a clear indication that the default settings can be altered or even blocked to help keep those people who would like to remain private just that.
Source:
ArsTechnica