Remember your Xbox Avatar? Well, your ability to change them up is going away soon. Xbox quietly announced that it’s shutting down the Xbox Avatar Editor early next year, and therefore, basically all Xbox Avatar functionality.
Microsoft wrote on an Xbox Support page (spotted by Pure Xbox) that it’s sunsetting the app, which let you create and customize an avatar with items you could buy in the Xbox Store, on January 9, 2025, due to “low engagement” and the need to shift its priorities to other projects.
“Players can still personalize their gaming experience with dynamic backgrounds and profile colors on Xbox consoles, and with Xbox Original Avatars, profile themes, and gamerpics on Xbox consoles and PCs,” Microsoft continued. You can also still use the avatar as your gamerpic, but you won’t be able to change up the look anymore or access them anywhere else. You’ll have to make these kind of gamerpic changes through the Xbox Original Avatars app.
The exception is with Xbox 360 games that allowed you to use your avatar, such as 1 vs. 100, the two Doritos Crash Course games (yes there were two apparently!) and Kinect Sports. Xbox clarifies that the change will not affect Xbox Original Avatars in these supported games. Players who bought items for their avatar since November 1, 2023, will also be refunded.
Xbox Avatars, now called Xbox Original Avatars, were introduced in 2008 with the Xbox 360. They’re similar to Nintendo’s Mii feature, which allowed players to customize a 3D version of themselves. According to Kotaku, they were in development at Rare, which wanted to make an avatar system that would be tied with a user’s account even across games. Former lead artist at Rare Lee Musgrave said that a lot of its success was because it was everywhere in Xbox’s ecosystem at the time.
“There are Avatars on the very front page of every dash of every Xbox, and when you buy a new box, one of the first things you are prompted to do is make an Avatar,” Musgrave said.
The Avatars also got a redesign in 2018 for the Xbox One, with more inclusive customization options like prosthetics.
However, over time they’ve become less relevant. While you still have to set a gamerpic when you sign up, you can choose between other art. They were also less prominent in other areas of the interface. With the Xbox Series X/S, they’re almost completely gone. So if you forgot you had one, you’re probably not alone.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.