[Rumor] Xbox Live Friends List Expanding From 100 to 1,000?

[DoctorFinger]

A since deleted post on Xbox Germany's Facebook page seems to indicate that the long awaited expansion of Xbox Live's friend list will be happening soon. This is something many of us have been expecting for a while. What makes this interesting (and frankly just a little hard to swallow) is the scale of the expansion. According to the post, the maximum number of friends is going from 100 to 1,000. That's a lot of friends.

A translation of the post from it's original German.

"A lot of long-term change was desired by Xbox LIVE users the limit of 100 friends. With the update you can now up to 1,000 friends of your friends list. How many friends do you have? Not enough? Then you looking for new friends on the Finder tab![referring to the Finder tab on Facebook]"

A major update to the Xbox Live dashboard is scheduled for early November. This update was centered mostly around Kinect functionality and new media streams like ESPN 3, and a boost to the friend list capacity would most likely happen at the same time.

So now may be a good time to start spamming your favorite gaming celebrity with friend invites. "My list is full" may not be a valid excuse soon.

Source - Joystiq

[Update] - And just like that, the dream dies. From Major Nelson's Twitter feed:

Let me straighten things out: We will not be expanding the friends list as a part of the next Xbox LIVE Update.

[Goronmon]

This better be true, I'm sick of having to prune my list every few months when a big new game comes out.

[National Kato]

Major Nelson's tweet from a few minutes ago:

Let me straighten things out: We will not be expanding the friends list as a part of the next Xbox LIVE Update. However, we’re always listening to member feedback and looking at new ways to enhance the service. Thanks

So don't get your hopes up. Likely, it'll be added value for some premium service they roll out in the future.

[Bone]

I constantly sit at 99 so I can still get requests, and have a few pendings just sitting there. About time they fixed this. Back during Halo 3 / COD4 / Burnout Paradise it was impossible to maintain all of your separate groups without pruning.

EDIT: Damn you Kato, mouthpiece for Nelson!

[Spigot]

Hell, THIS is a feature (if they were to keep it walled off) that I'd actually care about them cramming onto Live to justify a boost in price, unlike pretty much anything else they've implemented over the past few years.

Stupid tiny friends list.

[National Kato]

Originally Posted by Bone

EDIT: Damn you Kato, mouthpiece for Nelson!

Major Nelson's tweet from mere seconds ago:

Stuff it, Bone.

[Bone]

You sold me out, you bastard.

[rein]

Wasn't this discussed a very long time ago and there was some kind of limitation as to why they couldn't expand the friends list? I have no idea what would cause the limitation but I could have sworn there was a big todo about it a year or two ago. That, or I am delusional and remembering things that didn't happen. OMG! What if I am not me? What if I am alternate me and this happened in my world? To make matters worse, I vowed to kill alternate me if I ever met me him. I must go and look at the man in the mirror. You may or may not hear from me him again.

[fitbabits]

If it's something that will cost a premium, count me out.

[crazyD]

Originally Posted by rein

Wasn't this discussed a very long time ago and there was some kind of limitation as to why they couldn't expand the friends list? I have no idea what would cause the limitation but I could have sworn there was a big todo about it a year or two ago. That, or I am delusional and remembering things that didn't happen. OMG! What if I am not me? What if I am alternate me and this happened in my world? To make matters worse, I vowed to kill alternate me if I ever met me him. I must go and look at the man in the mirror. You may or may not hear from me him again.

From what I remember, wasn't the limitation caused by limitations on the original Xbox? Haven't they pretty much stopped supporting that by now?

[rein]

Originally Posted by crazyD

From what I remember, wasn't the limitation caused by limitations on the original Xbox? Haven't they pretty much stopped supporting that by now?

You know, I think you're right.

[Jackel]

Ever since Comic Jumper came out, I've been getting friend requests out the wazoo. So this would be nice.

[Goronmon]

The limitation was due to the original Xbox. That problem officially ended when they disconnected Halo 2 from Xbox Live, ending any support for original Xbox titles on Live.

Not sure why they haven't fixed it since then though.

[jeffbax]

Originally Posted by Goronmon

The limitation was due to the original Xbox. That problem officially ended when they disconnected Halo 2 from Xbox Live, ending any support for original Xbox titles on Live.

Not sure why they haven't fixed it since then though.

I'm sure they cache your friends in memory on the 360, so there is probably some optimization to do there as well. 360 friends list always seems faster to load than PSN where I think they re-poll more obviously.

[Kelegacy]

Do at least 200. I know, we always want more, but if a guy like me can max out his friends list and I don't even have Gold anymore, people that play online must really be itching to expand their list.

[Spigot]

Originally Posted by jeffbax

I'm sure they cache your friends in memory on the 360, so there is probably some optimization to do there as well. 360 friends list always seems faster to load than PSN where I think they re-poll more obviously.

You haven't played my 360 lately. That thing crawls even when loading things off of the (admittedly full) hard drive.

Sigh.

[Chris_D]

I don't play much online either but I would like bigger friends lists just for online leaderboards.

[MagGnome]

It boggles my mind that they have kept the limit for so long.

On Steam I have 126 friends, despite not being much of a multiplayer gamer. I wonder if there's even a limit.

[rein]

I wonder what the research shows for the average number of friends users have on friends list. Isn't the PS3 limit 100 too? Not that anyone could reach 100 friends on it.

[DoctorFinger]

Originally Posted by rein

I wonder what the research shows for the average number of friends users have on friends list. Isn't the PS3 limit 100 too? Not that anyone could reach 100 friends on it.

I don't have the link at hand, but I think Major Nelson said the average gamertag has around 25 friends. That's probably dragged down by a bunch of inactive and throwaway gamertags, but I doubt it's too much higher than that.