[RUMOR] Xbox 360: Of Lips & Avatars

[Psykoboy2]

A lot of news...well, RUMORS actually...breaking today concerning the Xbox 360. Both of which come from a survey that someone took and then sent in the details of what they read and saw. We'll start with the "lips" part of the situation. It seems to be essentially Microsoft's answer to Sony's SingStar. I'll let Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/15/survey-lips-is-xbox-360-karaoke-with-wireless-mics-store-di/) explain: Lips is a "music and singing game" featuring not only two wireless microphones (that's the hardware part) but also thirty tracks, an online store, and "the ability to use and sing your own music."

First: the Lips microphones will be "interactive" with "lights on the shaft of the microphone that pulse to the rhythm of your voice, and motion sensors that allow you to dance, move or swing to score points." Second: you can use songs from a CD (how do you get them into the game?) or from an iPod – apparently the game will magically "reduce the vocals so you can sing along and be heard." Don't know the lyrics by heart? You can add those in as well.

Now, about those Avatars (http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.xbox360fanboy.com/media/2008/06/xboxavatar.jpg). Again, here's Joystiq with the details (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/15/source-avatars-to-be-microsofts-answer-to-miis-and-home/): "Avatars", mentioned in an independent survey for Microsoft (as taken by an X3F tipster), will supposedly be used in place of gamer pictures, and will give Xbox Live subscribers an animated, customizable online persona. The meager amount of information provided for the service claims it will be available "this holiday for all Xbox Live connected members", and "this Spring for all new console owners."

This information lines up nicely with details recently relayed to Joystiq by a trusted source, who tells us that a robust "avatar" (source's term) creation service which blends the customization options of Home with the in-game functionality of Miis would comprise a substantial chunk of the 360's fall update.

All eyes look now towards E3. Speaking of E3.... (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52462)

[EL CABONG]

I wonder how well Avatars will work? Will anyone make games that use them?
I think this will fail, but I am open minded.
So if you bought a gamer pic you are SOL? Glad I never did.

So now they will sell us clothes and gear for are Avatars instead.

[Heretic Machine]

So, they're ripping off Singstar and Miis? Wonderful, glad they're being so original over there at Microsoft.

[Sandman]

I wonder if there will be an evil avatar.....

[EL CABONG]

I wonder if there will be an evil avatar.....

If they make one with a big red evil eye I will love them.

[Sandman]

If they make one with a big red evil eye I will love them.

You could probably make an avatar with red eyes and a goatee.

http://www.ravenna.com/~forbes/images/spock.jpg

[Sl1pstream]

How will I be able to do without my evil eye and/or Behemoth gamerpics?

If they want to use those things in-game, they'd better have damn good graphics. I don't need a Mii-type of character running around in Gears 2. Unless I can shoot it.

Lips? Ugh..
I wonder how they'll be able to justify an online store if they offer the ability to import your own songs. Would anyone even use the store?

Also:
(how do you get them into the game?)
They're making up rumors and we're supposed to know this?

[Uniqueusername]

My lack of interest in either of these is overwhelming.

No way to put a good spin on this. It's rather sad that MS is wasting time on fluff when they know full well that the store interface needs to be revamped.
It's so bad they are delisting stuff, yet instead of fixing it they decide to copy the pointless frills on other services.

Hey, MS... Here's a tip:
Focus on making stuff easy to use.
That's why the Wii is doing well, and why Vista isn't.

Adding more crap won't help, and may make the problem worse. The dashboard is already too cluttered and hard to use.

[Hexxagonal]

I'm guessing the "Lips" import feature will not have as many features as a purchased in store song. I mean even in that statement they said you have to stick in the lyrics yourself.

[Talon-]

Well, Microsoft was going to try something to appeal to that enormous casual fan base out there.

If they have some kind of paired down Home and a price drop, this certainly can't hurt in that regard.

I have to say that Lips might be the least appealing thing I've heard about all year.

Well besides Ronald McBoobs.

[Trickyicky]

They could keep gamerpics as a separate thing, or allow you to put them as backgrounds to your avatars. Then people wouldn't feel as ripped off and they could still sell them.

[ZeroType]

Ripping off something that works and works well is a bad idea in the entertainment industry since when? Oh, right, it's a great idea. Carry on, Microsoft.

I do agree with Cabong, are we SOL on any money spent on gamer pics, or will it somehow transfer?

[Sandman]

I do agree with Cabong, are we SOL on any money spent on gamer pics, or will it somehow transfer?

What if your current gamerpic became a design on the t-shirt your avatar is wearing?

[Sasori the Medic]

I would rather have a price cut!

[Trickyicky]

What if your current gamerpic became a design on the t-shirt your avatar is wearing?

That's much better than my idea.. It also comes to mind, they'll probably have add-on packs with shirts and pants and hair and stuff (and charge for them, of course).

[Sl1pstream]

What if your current gamerpic became a design on the t-shirt your avatar is wearing?

You're assuming that my avatar would be wearing a shirt. Or pants.

Maybe just a hat.

[Kelegacy]

As uninspired as it is, I'm okay with the Avatar thing...I think. I'll reserve judgment to see how it's implemented. But with the way Microsoft excels in terms of Xbox Live connectivity, it could be even more functional and better implemented than we've seen with the Wii and Miis.

I'm interested, but barely.

[Sandman]

You're assuming that my avatar would be wearing a shirt. Or pants.

Maybe just a hat.

So your avatar is Flea from RHCP then?

[UnderHero5]

I'm okay with both of these. I am especially interested in "Lips" (though, that's a really shitty name for a videogame... will the sequel be "Throat"?).

I'd love to own a Karaoke game like Singstar of Karaoke Revolution, but the song selection in always BLOWS. If I could use my own music, that would be great!
I'll definitely be checking that game out. Hopefully the vocal reduction doesn't suck (I'm sure it will).

[Sl1pstream]

So your avatar is Flea from RHCP then?

Now you're assuming that he would wear the hat on his head. I didn't say that.

[Codicier]

This is completely uninteresting to me. Whoever said they need an interface revamp far more is right. The dashboard is cluttered with a ton of shit now.

[Gorvi]

Another thing suckers will pay to put things on.

"Did you like buying gamerpics to advertise company X's products or show your love for your favorite game? Well, you're in luck, now you can buy the matching shirt/hat combination for your avatar!"

[Kelegacy]

Another thing suckers will pay to put things on.

"Did you like buying gamerpics to advertise company X's products or show your love for your favorite game? Well, you're in luck, now you can buy the matching shirt/hat combination for your avatar!"

Scary, but true. You'd think more gamer pics would be free, since it's essentially free advertising.

[fitbabits]

If the alleged avatars replace gamer pics, then I'll be one very unhappy gamer.

What was it I said about Sony and their breakaway controller design?? Oh yeah, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

[bapenguin]

Lips: Don't care. Check.
Avatars: Don't care. Check.

[fitbabits]

Lips: Don't care. Check.
Avatars: Don't care. Check.

What about Lips on your Avatar? Or, better still, Avatars on your Lips??

[inmostlight]

See, I don't care one bit about Lips, but this is exactly the sort of thing that my girlfriend would demand to play.

[Telefrog]

Avatars? Lips? Do not care.

This (http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/06/15/rumor-forza-3-will-have-2-discs-400-cars-more/). This is the story I care about from the same survey source as the Avatars and Lips rumor.


The page states that Forza 3 will ship on two discs, have some sort of "assist system", will be loaded to the brim with content (400 cars, 100 tracks, etc) and will have car deformation.

Oh, Hells yeah!

[oldjadedgamer]

So, they're ripping off Singstar and Miis? Wonderful, glad they're being so original over there at Microsoft.

Wow, I didn't expect you to be so excited about it and upbeat. Usually you are just a big downer in threads and never post anything positive. Good to see you bucking that trend!

[boratika]

"Lips"...ahem, "Lips" had such potential... until I read what it was.

You're assuming that my avatar would be wearing a shirt. Or pants.

Maybe just a hat.

"Birdman, put it away please. I like the little hat though, tre chic"

What about Lips on your Avatar?
Not very family-friendly...

Also, according to Firefox your name is spelt wrong and suggested:

fleabites
megabits
baby-sits
titbits

So I guess we should call you by your properly spelt name of "baby-sits"

[mister_slim]

That's much better than my idea.. It also comes to mind, they'll probably have add-on packs with shirts and pants and hair and stuff (and charge for them, of course).

Ooh, I'll finally be able to buy VelocityGirl's T-Shirt!

[Philonious]

My guess is that this was the 'desperate move' that Microsoft is supposed to be making? Yep, pretty desperate. Probably won't really affect any of us, but they're doing stuff that earned the PS2 and Wii widespread appeal in the past.

[Deadend]

Predictions... Lips will be shit.

Avatars will be everything that MS is trying to make it be, but still suck because 3D virtual worlds in place of menus are fucking stupid, just like a MS exec said back when Home was announced.

[boratika]

Predictions... Lips will be shit.

Maybe closer to release they'll change the name to "Shitlips"

[Wyrm]

If this is really all they've got "up the sleeve" so to speak, then they're fucked.

Admittedly, their fall game line up is still better than anyone else's, if you like sequels (which I do), but this kind of crap isn't going to cut it. They haven't had to compete because the PS3's launch was initially pretty shaky. They've ignored the fact that eventually, there will be a steady stream of content for the PS3, and it's going to bite them in the ass hard if they don't start bringing more than software to the fight. XBL is fantastic, but it needs to be brought into the 21st century now. If avatars and a singing game are their way of doing that, then color me completely unimpressed.

[Ferv]

You should mention what the original source of this is (neogaf) and then quote joystiq. I find it very annoying that you don't mention the original source of the information.

[Hellstorm]

Everything is going exactly how this guy is predicting it!http://malstrom.50webs.com/birdman.html

[sprankton]

Lips sounds awesome, but I like singstar.

[EternalGamer]

I could see something like Lips really taking off . . . on the Wii. There is just not enough casual fan base on the 360 for such a title. And I doubt anyone is going to drop $400 + just to lip sync with their favorite songs.

As for the Avatars, this just seems sad. They are designing a "create a character" that essentially has no world or function. What a shallow gimmick. Even if they did try to incorporate them, I just can't see these things being eff smoothly integrated into most games' graphic styles. The Wii's implementation of Miis itself is half baked (and it is a function that only applies to a handful of game). This is even more so.

I guess it could be interesting if they suddenly revealed that they had been secretly working on something as elaborate as Home for them to fit into, but other than that, it just seems like something not even worth a marketing bullet point.

[boratika]

Everything is going exactly how this guy is predicting it!http://malstrom.50webs.com/birdman.html

I love this so much:

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff13/Malstrom_photo/easeofusegonewrong.jpg

I just describes the phenomenon so succinctly and accurately.

[Talon-]

I could see something like Lips really taking off . . . on the Wii. There is just not enough casual fan base on the 360 for such a title. And I doubt anyone is going to drop $400 + just to lip sync with their favorite songs.
___
I guess it could be interesting if they suddenly revealed that they had been secretly working on something as elaborate as Home for them to fit into, but other than that, it just seems like something not even worth a marketing bullet point.

Well, that's not the point of Lips or the Avatars bit. 360 has gotten in-tune with the hardcore gamer market so far. That's not something they're overly concerned with nor should they.

What they're trying to do is to appeal to the casual gamer. If the price on the system drops to somewhere between $250-300, the idea would seem to be to showcase the 360 as a balance between casual and hardcore. The plan would be to appeal to the casual gamers (read: parents) with the gameshow feature, Lips, and some sort of Avatar "space" and then tout the 360's strong library of games.

It'd be foolish to just throw these Avatars out there without some way to interact with them. It would make sense for some sort of simplified Home that isn't mandatory.

[Kamalot]

Everything is going exactly how this guy is predicting it!http://malstrom.50webs.com/birdman.html

Thank you thank you thank you for this wonderful post!

[Kamalot]

I love this so much:

http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff13/Malstrom_photo/easeofusegonewrong.jpg

I just describes the phenomenon so succinctly and accurately.

This graphic needs the accompanying text...

The above picture illustrates the Casual Fallacy well. Wii Sports is a game stuffed with complexity (of its physics), replay value, and many game modes. It is what people want: a friendly but powerful game. Consumers want more games like Wii Sports but they get the plastic dog instead. Sure the game is ‘friendly’, but the power behind it is gone. It is a neutered game castrated from any purpose.

If the reader happens to be a member of the NES Generation, compare the games of youth of the so-called ‘kids games’ you got on the computer to Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda. The tailor made ‘kids games’ then ended up plastic dogs while the Nintendo classics ended up being the real dog. Western publishers were stunned that the 1980s children were abandoning their specialized ‘kids games’ to play these ‘Japanese games’.

If the reader happens to be a hardcore player (oh, that word!), compare games like Grand Theft Auto 3 and Halo to wannabe GTA and Halo clones. The wannabe hardcore games will put in gratuitous violence or sex or space aliens to ‘give the game the edge’. These wannabe games end up the plastic dog which annoys hardcore gamers to no end.

Why does the industry not treat the downmarket well? Outside of developer passion, the answer comes down to money. The upmarket games are far more profitable. It is a sure thing that the upmarket will buy the next first person shooter or epic RPG. And since the upmarket games take the most time and are costly, publishers will only put their first string teams on those games. The downmarket, that the industry thinks are its worst customers, sees these games as less profitable and cheaper to make. In their mind, it is perfectly logical to assign their fourth string teams to do these games as if they mess up, little harm is done.

Nintendo considered the downmarket to be the most important and put their first string teams to make games such as Wii Sports. The result is an explosion of sales with these low tier Nintendo titles. The industry looks at this and, idiotically, says, “Oh! A casual gamer boom! Quick! Let us all start making casual games to ride this wave!”

[appel]

I could see something like Lips really taking off . . . on the Wii. There is just not enough casual fan base on the 360 for such a title. And I doubt anyone is going to drop $400 + just to lip sync with their favorite songs.

My gf would love a game like Lips, or whatever it will be called. So as long as it doesn't suck and has songs that work they'll have at least one buyer.

Considering Uno (http://majornelson.com/archive/2008/06/11/live-activity-for-week-of-june-2nd.aspx) is selling so well I believe there is a casual market on the 360.

And we're still waiting for more games that uses the big button controllers. Several of my friends, with 360s, has expressed interest in Scene it because of them, if there only were more games using them.

[Yellowman]

Avatars? More like Miitoos.

[Kamalot]

Avatars? More like Miitoos.

Exactly. Not disruptive at all.

Avatars are to Miis what Saints Row is to GTA

[Purple Santa]

Exactly. Not disruptive at all.

Avatars are to Miis what Saints Row is to GTA

After the excellent link above, I understand that completely. Basically a nice try but a miss anyway for MS. I would love to see something really disruptive from MS.

[Evil Avnovice]

http://www.sadman64.net/images/rofl.png

That poor HD console. Cause you know the MDF would embrace it anyway. http://www.mazeguy.net/happy/rotfl.gif

[Magnanimous Gnome]

Yeah, sounds like desperation to me.

If they spend more than 5 minutes on these Avatars at E3 then it will be obvious that someone at MS is grasping at straws.

[asimonk]

I am impressed at how unimpressive this is.

[Yeti2005]

Obvious the hardcore gamers (most of us at EA) will hate the idea of Lips and Avatars. It'll be interesting to see how the "casual" gamers react (I hate that term btw).

There was talk of a gaming channel which could be cool. There's a ton of online users on Xbox Live and it would interesting to have a massive game of Jeopardy, You Don't Know Jack, etc.

[Telefrog]

Obvious the hardcore gamers (most of us at EA) will hate the idea of Lips and Avatars. It'll be interesting to see how the "casual" gamers react (I hate that term btw).

There was talk of a gaming channel which could be cool. There's a ton of online users on Xbox Live and it would interesting to have a massive game of Jeopardy, You Don't Know Jack, etc.

I don't think they'll care either way. It's late in the game to change the consumer perception of the 360 as a traditional "hardcore" gamer machine.

The only factor that will really drive sales now is a price drop.

[Baron Samedi]

Thank you thank you thank you for this wonderful post!

I agree. Great read.

That poor HD console. Cause you know the MDF would embrace it anyway. http://www.mazeguy.net/happy/rotfl.gif

HD Miis - you know all the fanboys will love it. Here comes Barbie.

[Zaro]

I think the Avatars is a good idea. I like to see and use Mii in a game.

[the soUL TRAder]

I'm confused?

The same people who thought that the Mii/Home ideas somehow made the online for the Wii and PS3 comparable to XBL, even though they still don't have the functionality to come close, now say this is the worst idea ever?

Is it a lame attempt to appeal to the "casual" market? Sure.

Is it meaningless to most of us "hardcore"? Yes.

Does it really matter? No, since XBL already has the most important functions we are looking for as hardcore online players.

If these casual things get more people to graduate to the 360 from the PS2/Wii, that's a good move.

[asimonk]

The same people who thought that the Mii/Home ideas somehow made the online for the Wii and PS3 comparable to XBL, even though they still don't have the functionality to come close, now say this is the worst idea ever?


I have a feeling the people saying this is stupid also think that Mii/Home is stupid, Miis less so than Home.

[biosc1]

This is completely uninteresting to me. Whoever said they need an interface revamp far more is right. The dashboard is cluttered with a ton of shit now.

Only really important if they are taking resources away from the "dashboard de-cluttering" team and putting them on this. My guess is that it's a big corporation with many teams working on many projects simultaneously.

[Norse]

Elite Beat Agents developers making Lips? (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/16/rumor-elite-beat-dev-inis-developing-xbox-360s-lips-karaoke/#comments)

I loved EBA so this rumor just got interesting. I still don't care for karaoke though, so it has to be something really special.

[Sl1pstream]

You should mention what the original source of this is (neogaf) and then quote joystiq. I find it very annoying that you don't mention the original source of the information.

Neogaf is a mess if you're trying to find info. The quoted part is from joystiq, so it's only fair to mention them as your source.

Let's not go to neogaf. It's a silly place.

[Codicier]

Only really important if they are taking resources away from the "dashboard de-cluttering" team and putting them on this. My guess is that it's a big corporation with many teams working on many projects simultaneously.

I think the whole 360 interface is probably pretty localized to a certain team. Of course I'm just guessing, but regardless my main point is that there are better things to focus your attention on, regardless of internal personnel structuring. And these concepts, to me, appear to be a complete waste.