360 Dashboard Update: The Future Of Achievements

Over the past week I've been delving into some of the elements of the August 11th 360 dashboard update, specifically with avatar props and Netflix additions. The final part of my interview with Ben Smith, the Director of Program Management for Xbox Live, looks more towards the future, and what we can expect to see from achievements.


The new update adds a pane to your profile page (pictured above) which keeps track of your total achievement score, your total potential achievement score (i.e. how many achievement points you could earn if you got 100% on all your played games), and the games in which you've gotten 100%.

Currently the pane is pretty benign. All you see are the icons representing the games you've finished...you can't click into it and delve deeper at the moment, but my mention of the pane clearly got Smith's attention:

"We're laying some groundwork for something that we're thinking of down the way. How do we celebrate the user themselves? There's a theme we're pushing here called 'Celebrate Me.' How do we celebrate the user, their accomplishments and their interests? We started laying the groundwork for a lot of that. Going into the future I think you'll see a lot more around that."

3rd party sites have allowed users to show off data like this as a forum signature, but it seems like Microsoft is taking steps to bring it all more in-house. Imagine being able to wear your completed games like medals, appearing next to your profile or even on your avatar. It hasn't happened yet, but it seems like a great way to, at a glance, see what games you're into. And yes, if "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is in that list you should be ashamed of yourself.

Another way that Microsoft is displaying your gaming history is by showing at the top of your profile how many years you've been a paying member of Xbox Live. Think of it like an American Express card: "Member since 2003." It also gives a lot of context to a gamer score...if someone's only been online for a year and they've racked up like 50K in achievement points, you know something's up.

Anyway, Smith didn't have any more concrete details to share, but the hope is that we'll be seeing a lot more being done with achievements in the future.


em:

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/08/06/360-dashboard-update-the-future-of-achievements/