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Your Avatar to take on your own body type


davhth4
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Microsoft has announced plans to promote health and fitness by making Xbox 360 avatars take on the same physical appearance as their real-world counterparts.

Last week, the platform holder filed a patent application for "Avatar Individualized by Physical Characteristic". According to the filing, the initiative will use health and psychological data to form a realistic representation of the user.

Microsoft also noted that users will be locked out of certain components of games or chatrooms until the health parameters have been met.

"Physical data that reflects 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," the patent read. "Thereby, people are encouraged to exercise."

It was indicated that the avatar will also be based on psychological traits such as intelligence, religious beliefs and political affiliations. The listing went on to explain how an individual's health and mood could be determined.

"As a person utilises Voice over IP to chat with a viewing person in the virtual environment, stress could be detected to gauge honesty," the application stated. "As another example, skin resistance, pulse and breathing could be detected to gauge mood."

It is thought that the initiative could tie in with the upcoming Project Natal in 2010.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a192747/xbox-avatars-to-promote-fitness.html

 

Ive heard people talk about this before that they would like it but then again alot of realy un fit people probaly wont like it at all. But the time budgeted to play seems not fair. Stopping unfit people playing the xbox?

 

Somehow I cant see this working at all.

 

(sorry if it has been posted, I could not find it in the search box)

 

 

Im hoping this will never come to anything: "Microsoft also noted that users will be locked out of certain components of games or chatrooms until the health parameters have been met." .

 

Since you would need natal to have this working and they cant force you to buy it, it means that it should be able to be toggled on and off. I highly doubt many people will use it. If we wanted to be told to excercise more we would play the wii fit since that gives you excercise while gaming instead of telling you to go out and excercise. Just I couldnt see it working.

Edited by davhth4
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Firstly, obviously this is total BS.

 

But there's another point to this aswell imo.

Fitness means different things to different people, they can't exactly make a stantard for it.

Like to me the only fitness that really matters is stuff like strength. And yeah, I can safely say I can lift quite a lot, but I can't run for shit.

And then there's folk who would be able to do marathons but couldn't lift their own body weight.

 

 

Don't think they could force you to do it though.

I'm an adult for all intents and puropses, I'll do what I want. I'm not having MS force me to dance in my living room for 15 minutes so I can go back to dungeon trawling in Oblivion.

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Not being able to play a game because I'm a big guy eh...honestly I take offense to that because:

 

1. Weight has NOTHING to do with the game...

2. They can't decide if we can't fully access what we PAID for...

3. Who are they to force us to do this?

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That could be hilarious.

Your Xbox powers up, with either that webcam or Natal in the future, and it'll be like "Woah, munchface, go lose some weight!" *powers down*

 

I really don't see it happen any time soon, MS would be way too scared that people discover the fun of real sports and start game less.

 

lmfao munchface!!!! never heard that before.

 

I heard this on ign, I take it as a add-on for people who are addicted to games but want to lose weight.

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This has to be a part of some game, add-on, or idea Microsoft has, but not to the extent of locking people out of everything because of fitness. This would result in a HUGE lawsuit that I would not be able to get in on unless I did nothing but eat Crisco and play XBox for a few years.

 

I can see where this would benefit some people, like the post above, making it an add-on to encourage the people that want something like this. Anything beyond that is infringement.

 

If I ever booted up a game system and it told me anything about having to exercise I would listen. I would go get a sledgehammer and smash the damn thing into pieces then ship it back to the manufacturer with a nice letter telling them how I enjoyed their system.

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I all fairness, some 360 games give you a pretty decent workout. I was given DDR with that in mind, and I find I work up a bit of a sweat playing drums on Rock Band. And with Natal coming out, there will probably be a few more games that will get you moving.

 

On the other side of this argument, this can not be a manadatory thing. They will not make this a system update affecting every avatar. I am not worried about my avatar gaining weight, just bloodshot eyes. Think critically about the article and the supposed product and it does not make a ton of sense for any company to do this the way some people think. It is Microsoft's answer to Wii Fit, you can download it if you want it.

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