Adam Kinney at
Microsoft cooks up a handy little
Gadget to fill your empty
Sidebar tool in
Vista with the latest data on your
Xbox Live friends of choice.
Just one caveat kids - this tool
doesn't actually link into your
Xbox LIVE account in real-time. You'll have to manually enter the
Gamertags you'd like to keep track of.

While this is a slick little gadget looks nice in your
Sidebar it only serves to remind me of the lack of support and delivery on the
Games for Windows LIVE promise. We were promised a bright future of
Xbox LIVE integration, dynamic friend's list tracking tools and a gaming experience - vis a vis
Vista - that would remove all the pains of driver and software compatibility issues.
Almost a year into the launch and
Vista gaming performance is still quite simply dreadful and the
LIVE experience is lacking. Heck, even
Valve uses XP on all their internal dev and demo systems - that's telling.
We appreciate the widget
Adam - but we'd love to see Microsoft start delivering on the
Games for Windows promise. Meanwhile, quite literally across town,
Valve is picking up the pieces where
Microsoft is failing in terms of providing PC community.
Just compare
STEAM and and its
13million strong user base to
Xbox LIVE and it's
7million and when you tell me PC gaming is dead again I'll sock you in the mouth
Source: Adam Kinney's Blog
Link: Download the Gadget