Good news for gamers, bad news for anyone who count the pixel-obsessed among their social media friends: This Fall Microsoft will bring Facebook and Twitter applications to the Xbox 360, allowing gamers to more easily stalk acquaintances from their couches and brag about their gaming accomplishments. Gaming blog Joystiq covered the announcement, which came at Microsoft’s Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference in Los Angeles Monday:

The core technology for the Xbox Facebook service is Facebook Connect, which links logins for different programs and sites (such as Digg) to a Facebook user profile. On the 360, it’ll link your Facebook profile to your gamertag. From your linked Xbox Live profile, you can look at friends’ Facebook profiles, update your status and look at pictures you and your friends have posted. In addition, if you accomplish any incredible in-game feats, you can update your Facebook profile to let your friends know of your achievement.

Gamers are giddy about the cross-integration, but geez, I’m pretty hard core gaming freak and still I’m thinking I don’t really need to know when a friend racks up 100,000 kills in Gears of War 2. Some things are best kept private.

There’s already an application that lets gamers post their achievements on Facebook automatically, but the new 360 interface will streamline the process. Anticipate Facebook’s “hide” news feed function to hit an all-time high once this feature hits.

In addition to the Facebook and Twitter revelation, Microsoft also sent a few more shockwaves Monday by revealing it’s releasing a motion-controller project, release on-demand movies in high-definition, stream Internet radio and offer current-generation games as downloads on Xbox Live.

Unfortunately, none of the new announcements addressed any sort of remedy for the fact that Xbox 360s constantly break.

Facebook on Xbox Live: What it is, and what it isn’t [Joystiq]

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