GameFest: Inside Avatars For The Xbox 360

July 23rd, 2008, 22:13 Posted By: wraggster

Talking at Microsoft's GameFest event in Seattle, the company's Cameron Egbert and Dan Kroymann have been discussing the creation of avatars for the Xbox 360, revealing lots of new details on the practicality of developers implementing avatars within their games.

"It [Avatars] gives them an online presence they did not have before without Xbox Live. It is ubiquitous across the system. Also, you can use them in your games as a replacement for your characters, or in your UI, or whatnot."

Egbert further explained: "You build them from a predefined set of geometry and textures and customize them as you want... to suit your tastes."
How about edgy avatars? Egbert explained: "This is a product for everyone, so nothing in here will violate an E10 rating - no weapons, no compromising situations."

Finally, Egbert and colleague Kroymann took questions from the audience, with Egbert answering a query about whether there would be branded clothes or hats in the game with: "That's not anything that's being handled in the first iteration."
How about avatars rolling out across Games For Windows or MSN? Egbert said there's "...nothing to announce right now - this is the first stage, doing it on Xbox".
Can you use avatars in Xbox Live Community-developed games? Dan Kroymann noted: "not yet", but that the Community Team had been talking to them.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=19519

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