Level Orange

OK, so this might not be the most accurate depiction of me, but then again, I did try to make it as accurate as possible. I’ve played around with the new Avatars with the new Xbox 360 dashboard (wisely being marketed as the New Xbox Experience, or NXE, for anyone not into gaming), and I have to say, it’s kinda neat.

I’m not particularly a fan of the plans to capitalize on things like clothes and accessories and whatnot for the Avatars by game publishers and licensors, but I can understand the business sense of it. And after personally tinkering around with the system, I can see where it’s starting to come up short, assumedly so that third parties can come in and add even greater value to it.

I’ll be interested to see just how much a Halo or Rock Band t-shirt costs for an Avatar. One can only hope that a whole new outfit wouldn’t be much more than say, a set of gamerpics (roughly a buck or two), but with some publishers eager to nickel-and-dime gamers for every little item, I wouldn’t be surprised to see purchases like this broken down even further. “Want a new bracelet? How about a new baseball cap? That’ll be $1 each, please.”

Yeah, let’s hope not.