E3 2017: There's Never Been a Better Time to Be an Xbox Avatar

Not sure why they are bothering unless they plan on putting them out front and center like they kind of were on the 360. As they are now, you barely see them on the X1.

Either way, I'm fine with this as long as they also support all the crap that people poured money into for avatar clothes. I'm going to be pretty fucking upset if I can't do Scorpion's head on Ivan Drago's body carrying Captain America's shield or whatever.

I'm expressing my disinterest

Windows 10 store games.

OK sure...

I wonder if that wheelchair is going to cost as much as a real one.

I had heard they were working some new avatar thing but I never expected it to be this 'o'

hell yeah

can i change the color of the bottom of an avatar's shoe?

Yeah, sure. I'm okay with that for some reason.

Why?

I hope my Kim Jong-il pantsuit carries forward

I don't really care about avatars... but, I kind of like the style of them? They have a very Pixar look to them.

Gotta say, the HD-ified version of these avatars is getting into some creepy uncanny valley territory here... something about that first avatar's smile, eep.

They need to integrate these into ms word and have them as office assistants. Clippit is so last decade.

Nice! Now if only Nintendo would either improve or end the Miis...

Weird choice. I don't mind the Avatars one way or the other, but I have owned an Xbox One since launch and I don't think I have seen the avatar I made like 6 years ago.

These look dumb and fun. Good on em for all the inclusive options!

Seeing prosthetics and wheelchairs immediately turned me from "eh" to "this is an extremely cool thing that almost nothing offering to make a representation of 'you' bothers with".

Seriously, a huge difference. This is rad to see.

Okay those look cool and all, but... why?

that's a whole lot of white avatars

Holy fuck. These look awesome. I love customization in anything so I'd love to mess around with one of these. Even if I only bother with it once in a blue moon, I'm still glad they're doing this.

Wouldn't have thought I'd care about avatars coming back, but this looks really good. Nice to see the prosthetics and such as well.

I wonder if any of their GUI is getting redesigned to be friendlier for Avatars, because I don't see how these fit into the current "everything is flat squares floating in a dimensionless void" aesthetic.

They look uncanny... :|

Couldn't care less personally but at least they made them look good this time.

Agreed. Looks like they've put some thought into diversity too.

Is it just me or is duckwalking in high heels probably the most unrealistic thing in video games today?

I just hope they're not forcing Rare to churn these out to sell Doritos or whatever.

I guess it'd be cool if they looked that good, but then again, who still uses avatars? They're not as easily accessible as it was on the 360 so I don't ever fiddle with it. I don't know, that'd be like making me a cartoon me if it certainly does look like that, and that'd be neat even if I only used it once.

Where do you even see your avatar?

Hey, I'm all for some good character creation and paper-doll fun, but what do you do with them after?

That is the issue with Miis, Avatars and even PS Home had...what can you do with them? Or, rather what are we allowed to do with them.

What do people WANT to do with characters they create? ...Yeah, weird shit! Or, sometimes stupid shit that when looked at broadly is not very friendly - like dropping them off cliffs or making them kiss like smashing two Barbie dolls together. And, people need to do weird shit with them because that is the essence of play. But MS doesn't want you doing weird shit with these characters and they ESPECIALLY don't want you recording it for online display.

So yet again this ideas bumps up against they "what will they let you do with them?" The Answers is jack shit. They will dance. They will spin in a wheelchair. They will bounce a ball or do a burnout on a motorcycle. ...And that is it, that is 75% of the list.

Safe - Non Confrontational - Family Friendly.

Those avatars look great! They look amazingly great, but so what? We won't, can't be allowed to really use them in any way that will be interesting or playful.

So that's where they found the extra "X" to put in "Xbox One X." PiXar.

lol

Yah as a person that loves to play dress-up in RPG's and any game that lets you customize your character this is fun stuff. I sure prefer to customize a fun avatar with cool achievement unlocked clothing options than the extremely outdated icons on PSN.

Sony is doomed now!! LET'S ROCK, X.B.O.X

My current avatar has a locust head from Gears of War 2, a cowboy outfit from Red Dead Redemption and a Chocobo from FFXIII. Are they going to be lost in the annals of history? My locust cowboy?

This just made me want to play Overwatch again... make of that what you will.

My current avatar is Lando Calrissian performing a line dance. I hope that will continue to be supported.

They look like Shadman's art... or.... so I've heard >_>

I'm sure there was someone very vocal that said they wanted this, now if they bring back 1 vs 100 or some other content like that, it would make sense.

Fat avatars please.

I actually posted about this update nearly a year ago that very few sites even reported on because it was just in a Twitter exchange

https://www.giantbomb.com/xbox-one/3045-145/forums/xbox-avatars-are-getting-an-update-1799295/

The response that you can see in the thread, however, was less than positive but this new reveal shows us that they've seen a dramatic change, even since then. The new designs are somewhat more reminiscent of Disney's computer animated films such as Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph.

This does raise the question though, if Microsoft are bringing back avatars with such a big redesign, what purpose will they serve? I actually think these new designs are fantastic but they need a reason to exist.

The return of 1 vs. 100?

@johnny_sailor: what

In what universe is pointing out that 3 out of 21 avatars represented in that trailer wee whits is "tumblr garbage"? Minorities of all type are disastrously underrepresented.

Say what you want, but those seem like really well done models.

I own an Xbox 1 and never knew there were still avatars until just now.

This is harmless, and I see no negatives. Plus they look good. So right on.

Microsoft shouldn't have bothered with making these avatars more inclusive, right? /sarcasm

These are probably really pointless but they look great. I'd love if we got something like this on PS4.

As one of those people who can happily spend hours in character creation I'd probably spend far too much time & effort on making mine

So dumb, but a great way for MS to make money selling virtual clothing to people.

@dagbiker: Yo this avatar is PHAT.