Digital Age

If you’re one of the lucky ones and havemanaged to get your hands on a 360, you’ve probably hookedit up to Xbox Live and watched as notifications flood the screen every time a friend signs on. While you canturn these off, online status isn’tall there is to the new Xbox Live friend-tracking system.

Using an original Xbox, you can view your friends list to see which game each friend is playing. If it’s the same gameas you, you may be able to see more information—such as, in Halo 2, who they’re playing with and what they’replaying. Now, even if you don’t have a 360, you can sign in to Xbox.com and view youronline friends list to see what they’re up to and whenthey were last online.

However, it doesn’t stop there. Not only can you see whether your friends are winning or losing from your onlinefriends list, you can invoke their profile using your 360 console to find out a lot more. Are they viewing pictures?Playing music? Downloading? What’s their score so far? Imagine our surprise as voice messages flood in regarding thepuny points achieved in our current game ofHexic. Especially for those with well-publicisedgamertags, the “appear offline” functionality grows in appeal. It’s nice to keep track of close friends, but do youwant the random people you played with once knowing your every move?