Hands-on with New Xbox Experience: Welcome to avatar city

By Daniel Terdiman on 09 October 2008, 12:45pm

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All about avatars
Clearly, with this new interface, Microsoft is going for both Sony and Nintendo's jugulars, hoping to create a community experience that lures gamers of every level of experience, every age group, both genders, and even those for whom watching downloadable movies is as close as they come to playing games.

Any discussion of the new Xbox Live, though, has to start with the service's new avatar function.

To begin with, players can choose an avatar from a large selection that run on to the screen looking like a group of school kids, each dressed differently and sporting diverse hair styles and skin colours. Don't like that group? Move on to the next one. And on and on, until you find one you like. Each group is presented randomly, and within the group, individual avatars seem to try to get your attention by jumping up and down and raising their hand. Don't worry, they won't be too disappointed if you choose someone else.

Once you pick your avatar, you go into a low-end character editor where you can outfit your new persona with new clothing, hair, accessories and the like. To those familiar with Nintendo's Mii avatars or those from the countless virtual worlds out there, this will feel like old hat.

Microsoft claims it's not copying Nintendo or anyone else. Rather, it takes the view that it is just adjusting to what the marketplace wants.

And customisable avatars creates an opening for an extension to the traditional Xbox achievements system, in that games can now give out awards such as clothes, tattoos and other add-ons that will help users distinguish their avatars from the millions of others on the system.

Either way, once you've picked your avatar, you're ready to jump into the new Xbox Live.

It's not clear yet, according to Albert Penello, director of marketing for Microsoft's platform and Xbox Live group, whether the avatars will find their way into games. Even if they do, it would probably be something that would happen at the more casual end of the spectrum. "I doubt Halo would incorporate avatars," he said.

Still, one obvious question is whether games such as Halo will reward players with items such as Master Chief's armour as new avatar accessories, and Penello acknowledged that that's a frequent query from users.

With the existing Xbox Live, a big fan favourite was what are called themes, essentially imagery from games such as BioShock or Gears of War that are used to customise the Live experience.

Now, these themes will be incorporated in a new way, said Rob Gruhl, a senior strategist with Microsoft's game platform strategy team, who showed me how players can essentially have large game-themed wallpaper that sits in the background of their Xbox Live screen.