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That's me. I don't look like that at all, but that's me. On Xbox Live.
Personally, I wanted no part of the silly avatar business in the New Xbox Live Experience. But I have no say in the matter. I was shunted into avatar creation before I could get to my games. It wouldn't let me play Fable 2, which was all I wanted to do, until I'd created an avatar. Microsoft made me make a Mii, even though I'm perfectly content to ignore the one I already have on my Nintendo Wii.
I thought the Xbox 360 was supposed to be the mature gaming system for grown-ups and hardcore gamers. I guess that was before the Wii routinely outsold it and officially outstripped its install base. I guess that was before the potential revenue from Micropayments (see what I did there?) for stupid things like theme packs and now shirts and hats for your avatar. I guess that was before us grown-ups started having our own kids who will need to be won over from their Wiis at some point. Microsoft isn't going to leave any of that family-friendly money on the table. Hence things like You're In the Movies Now and these cute avatars.
So my sole objective in making my avatar was to create someone as un-cute as avataristically possible. I hope I've succeeded. He's as fat, balding, red-eyed, and badly dressed as I can make him. In fact, when I go to the My Really Happenin' Page of Bitchin' Stuff on the new Blade (tm) Shuffling Interface, a little dialogue bubble has my avatar saying the quote I entered into Xbox Live when I joined six years ago. It's the first line from David O' Russell's subversive war thriller, Three Kings. "Are we shooting?" Mark Wahlberg's character asks as he trains his sights on an Iraqi soldier.
But now when I see the dialog bubble coming out of my creepy not-cute avatar, the effect is that of a lech stumbling onto the set and hoping to join into the production of a porno movie. Microsoft has let me creep myself out.
But mostly I'm disappointed in this New Xbox Live Experience because it's mostly designed for Microsoft instead of me. Xbox Live used to be big screens of color with little ads in windows. Now the proportions are reversed. The whole thing is built to market stuff to me, to force me to page past whatever Bitchin' Cool Happening Stuff is Going Down for Only 260 Microsoft Points this week. Which I can ignore easily enough, but not as easily when it was done in small windows.
(Thanks to Pogo for giving my avatar a voice in the picture above!)
Frakjack
Welcome to Eureka
Carter's Car Dodge
By AdventuraFreckles at 12:52 PM ON 11/20/08
I'm pretty uneducated when it comes to the latest and greatest in the gaming world. I'm pretty much content to sit back with a good old fashion fantasy RPG. I mean...monster hunting is FUN, right?! So I dont know about all that hoopla you were talking about in your article, but I'm sorry to tell you I need to disagree about the creepy aspact of your avatar...He's definately brought a smile to my face with his little Full Metal Jacket meets Homer Simpson thing going on.
By Sparky at 1:39 PM ON 11/20/08
Yeah, Tom, you would NEVER wear khaki shorts with rubber galoshes.
By Pete S at 1:54 PM ON 11/20/08
Pretty much in agreement. Thank goodness the XBox Button brings up a mini-version of (for all intents and purposes) the old interface.
I mean, I have to "In Search of..." the game I want to play otherwise. WTF was that sneaker movie/add thing? I had to watch it all in spite of the fact I could feel brain cells dying. I couldn't look away, I had to see what the point of it all was, no matter how terrible the cost. And then it was all... an ad?
By Megalomegalodon at 4:03 PM ON 11/20/08
I love the Netflix streaming, but it is not in surround sound.
By Troy Goodfellow at 4:19 PM ON 11/20/08
The quote should be: "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."
By Zeus at 5:36 PM ON 11/20/08
I can't imagine having something like this foisted upon me. It's like being forced to draw a wacky caricature of yourself before you can play. It's like they're intent on destroying their hardcore gamer image. Want to make people flee to PS3? Require Miis. It's that easy. Whee!
By markgreyam at 5:52 PM ON 11/20/08
It's gone from being a perfectly functional interface (what more do you want out of the front end of a console?) to an overly messy, marketing focused interface. I think you know the user base they were aiming at when you have to create an avatar and then your 'games summary' is basically just an easy way of seeing all your achievements. Sigh. Can we please have an 'adult' mode that reverts back to the original.
I will be bastardising my avatar tonight, this much is certain. Unless there is a suitable awesome alternative, today will be my avatars last day in posession of pants.
By malkav11 at 7:16 PM ON 11/20/08
I created a creepy albino vampire trucker.
I think there are some solid interface improvements in there - I think it's much easier to browse achievements now, for example, and I never used to be able to scroll through the descriptions of Marketplace content. But it does seem really ad-oriented.
By PeterD at 8:27 PM ON 11/20/08
Darn, I was actually looking forward to the new Xbox interface (streaming netflix with existing hardware, woo!), but the fact that it's nothing but an ad bonanza makes me slightly less sorry my home internet has been dead all week.
Slightly.
By SSines at 9:40 PM ON 11/20/08
I created Ernst Stavro Blofeld from 007. Tom, you should have added the vampire teeth to that one.. just you know.. because.
By ssines at 9:42 PM ON 11/20/08
http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/LordApoc/avatar-body.png
By AblativMeatshld at 10:24 AM ON 11/21/08
Hate to break it to you, dude, but PSN, whatever the Wii uses, and LIVE are all based on the idea of marketing something to you.
That it took bigger ads to make you aware of that fact is a little frightening...
By FabledFoe at 5:42 AM ON 11/22/08
I dislike it so much, I won't even consider buying into a 360 now.