Do yourself and Xbox LIVE a favour. Go and tell Microsoft not to kill Inside Xbox in Europe. Go ahead, it'll only take a second. I'll wait right here.

An Internet Petition to That Effect

I didn't hear any signing. Did you sign? Sign and we'll talk.

Done? Good. If you're already au fait with the Inside Xbox situation, grand. If you're not and didn't read the text to which you've already put your signature, let me break it down for you:

1. The US version of Inside Xbox has been canned.

2. The European version might go the same way.

3. You've given me power of attorney.

Except not the last one. I'd only have used it to sign a petition to tell Microsoft not to kill Inside Xbox in Europe on your behalf so what, really, would be the point.

Inside Xbox US, as fronted by Major Nelson, has already gone quietly into that good night, scrapped by Microsoft in favour of third-party content. Now Europe's equivalent, as fronted by MrPointyHead and Farrantula, is on the same chopping block, and it'd be a crying goddamn shame if we lost that as well.

The channel's flagship shows, SentUAMessage and The Nexus, are smarter and funnier and more ambitious than platform-holder-funded video has any business being. If you've never caught them, maybe because the dashboard now buries them under menu tiles and squeezes them between ad tiles, go and watch some old episodes. (Watch some really old ones and you'll see me. That's where I cut my video presenter teeth, gnawing away on season three of SUAM.)

This is great community engagement and great entertainment and if you own an Xbox you should be in a spitting rage that Microsoft wants to TAKE FREE ENTERTAINMENT AWAY FROM YOU. Doesn't that sound like something you should be mad about? It is something I am mad about on your behalf. You're welcome.