Xbox Achievement panties.If you have an active Xbox Live friend list, you probably know one or two achievement whores. They usually have a huge Gamerscore and tend to be the type to brag about that thing no one else in the lobby seems to care about. As it turns out, those hard won achievements might have get nerfed by the developer to increase sales.

According to a recent OXM interview with Gearbox prez Randy Pitchford, developers can sell between 10,000 and 40,000 more units of a given game if the achievements are a bit easier to pick up. Make things too hard and those Gamerscore freaks look elsewhere for easy points.

Here’s an idea for Microsoft – sell Gamerscore points on Live. Even better, sell Gamerscore points via some dummy company so those goons don’t get all high and mighty. Really, what’s the difference between purchasing the points right out and buying a crappy game with easy achievements for the same purpose?