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Live ID lameness rears ugly head once more


If your gamertag is saddled with a Hotmail or MSN email address, you may know of the unbreakable bond between them. Discovered long ago, it is impossible to associate your gamertag with a new email address if your Windows Live ID was automatically created by a Microsoft site like Hotmail or MSN. Before, it was a minor annoyance, as it forced many to maintain an email address they had long since abandoned. Now, with the release of Live Messenger integration on the 360, it's become a serious nuisance.



See, if you want to use Live Messenger, you have to sign up using the email address associated with your gamertag. What's that you say? Your Live Messenger account is set up through a different email address? Mine too! Now I and many others are stuck with the awkward task of migrating contact lists from their active Live Messenger accounts to their inactive Live ID email address. In other words, many will find themselves with separate Messenger accounts for PC and 360 (or revert back to one that they never use). Put simply, it's asinine and it needs to be fixed.

Now that we've said our piece, we should mention that Microsoft is, in fact, working on a solution. Major Nelson posted a quick FAQ about the update specifically mentioning this problem. According to him, a future release (sooner than the Fall Update we hope) should allow anyone to change the email address associated with their gamertag. The sooner the better, because we're sure there are thousands of unfortunate souls ready to put their Hotmail addresses to pasture (where they can frolic and collect spam).