Xbox Gaming in South Africa

File this one under "Worst Ideas Ever". Microsoft has filed a patent for some sort of "Avatar Individualized By Phyisical Characteristic" system. Basically, they want your Xbox Avatar to look like you, claiming that "an Avatar generator for a virtual environment reflects a physiological characteristic of the user, injecting a degree of reality into the capabilities or appearance."

Maybe, but isn't the point of gaming to get away from all that pesky reality business? If Microsoft wants to inject a degree of reality into the Xbox experience, they should just start shipping the console with automatic weapons.

"Linking the avatar to a physical characteristic of a user provides leverage to provide incentives or constraints that can encourage good behavior (e.g., healthy behaviors, virtuous behaviors, etc.)," says Microsoft. "Physiological data that reflect a degree of health of the real person can be linked to rewards of capabilities of a gaming Avatar, an amount of time budgeted to play, or a visible indication. Thereby, people are encouraged to exercise. Physiological data that reflect the health and perhaps also mood also improve social interaction in virtual environments."

Somewhat ominously, the patent application adds that, "People seeking to meet and become acquainted with particular types of people are not thwarted by the artificiality of Avatars." What, now the Xbox is a dating portal too?

Expect whatever this turns out to be to arrive alongside the upcoming Xbox 360 motion controller, Project Natal. Which also means that, if you don't want the world to know how tragically misshapen you really are, you can totally avoid it by not buying the Project Natal peripheral. Is this a marketing disaster waiting to happen? Stay tuned.

[via Eurogamer]