We just wanted to take a moment to remind you: If you're the sort who likes to preserve their digital privacy, an e-hermit if you will, you'll want to beat cheeks over to Xbox.com and change your "Friends of Friends" preferences. As we speak, people are looking at your friends list. And they're judging you ... harshly.

This also gives us the opportunity to ask a question we've been considering: How will you set your preferences? Do you care if the earth eyeballs your list? Are you going to restrict it to friends? Or are you going to hide your friend light under a proverbial bushel?

Will you share your Xbox 360 Friends list?

With the whole world!Only with friends.No way on earth.Vote

A recently purchased Microsoft Points Card package (manufactured in Ireland) confirms the impending launch of Xbox Live Video Marketplace in Europe, apparently limited to the UK, Ireland, France, and Germany. The packaging also suggests that users will be able to rent "great movies" (in high-def), but does not mention the possible availability of television content.

Microsoft has loosely targeted a year-end release for Video Marketplace in parts of Europe (and Canada), and with this new evidence, we should expect Tuesday's Dashboard Update to include the service in all relevant territories.

[Thanks, RazorD]

Microsoft Japan recently held a small press briefing detailing some of the new features bundled into the Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard Update. With the help of Engadget Japanese's Ittousai we've been able to pinpoint a few relevant changes that are in store for next Tuesday's update. The most significant addition is the reorganization of the "games" blade (pictured above), which now features the "Games Library" (in place of "Xbox Live Arcade"), in addition to the old "Achievements" and "Played Games" sections.

When opened, the Games Library is nearly identical to the current XBLA menu, with a vertically-scrolling games list and an info box appearing for the highlighted game [Famitsu image]. New, however, is a horizontal sorting menu, broken down by filters like "All Games," "Arcade," "Demos," and "Recent Downloads." (This new horizontal and vertical organization is not unlike Sony's XMB design -- Microsoft calls it "twist" navigation, the same UI used for Zune.)

Additional Fall Update features:

• Top level of "marketplace" has been reorganized and reduced to four categories: "Featured Content," "What's New," "Game Store," and "Video Store" (below top level, categories will be navigated by twist, just like the Games Library)
  
• "Personal Profile" added to Gamer Profile; text field allowing approx. 500-1000 characters, providing space to publish name, nationality, region, and self introduction. (Further social networking tools to accompany 'Friends of Friends' functionality)
• XBLA demos deleted from "Played Games" and Gamercard lists
  

Note: This feature set is by no means complete, and we should expect to see variations in and additions to the North American update, which will be made available on Dec. 4th.

Read - Game Watch (Impress)
Read - Famitsu

The size and quality of your Xbox 360 friends list is sort of like the thickness and number of pockets in your Trapper Keeper were in middle school: It's an undeniable barometer of coolness among a very specific subset of people. After Dec. 4's fall update, you'll finally be able to judge your friends' binders e-popularity with the new "Friends of Friends" feature.

Unless they've disabled it right here, you'll be able to flip through others' friends lists to see how they stack up to yours, maybe even add a few prized names to your own. It's a cool feature, but it has us a bit worried about list capacity. With the new opportunities to make friends, could we have more than 100? Please?

[Via X3F]

Team Xbox has singled out a recent posting on the official Xbox forums declaring a class action lawsuit has been filed against Microsoft because of hardware problems initiated by the Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard Update. The alleged plaintiff, known by gamertag REDRUM6622, has supposedly accused Microsoft of a breach of contract, violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act, and negligence; and he has demanded that a jury weigh the allegations.

There has not yet been official verification of the lawsuit's authenticity, but real or not, someone has taken the time to draft a detailed claim -- could it all be for a few laughs? We shall see.

Last Tuesday, we found ourselves rushing out to a local Toys "R" Us to pick up Microsoft's official VGA cable after our trusty Dell 2405FPW balked at dishing out 1080p over component. Regardless, we wanted to watch our 1080p upscaled DVDs and -- due to all sorts of arcane legal restrictions -- Microsoft is only able to offer that service over VGA and not component (note: reason #38 why we want an HDMI connection).

So, you'll appreciate our dismay when we plugged in our new ($50!) cable, only to find that our display had serious issues with the 360's VGA connection -- it was entirely washed out, a known issue with the Xbox 360's VGA implementation apparently. But there's more! Any resolution, not just 1920x1080, exhibits a significant amount of screen tearing, which isn't replicated using component. And one last thing. Some televisions, most notably Sony's LCD XBR series, that are supposed to accept 1080p over component just flat out refuse. Just reading through the AVS Forums thread on the topic should be enough to convince anyone that something's rotten in the state of 1080p on the 360.

Microsoft podcaster Major Nelson brings word that the team in Redmond is aware of the 1080p issues and are working on a fix ... at around 8 minutes into his latest 'cast (number 200, congrats!), he says the display issue is "kind of this bug that the guys are working on and they are aware of." He limits it to simply the 1080p over component issue, so let's hope that Microsoft takes the opportunity to isolate and correct the outstanding VGA issues as well.

[Via Engadget HD]