Avatar (Xbox Live)

Xbox Live Avatars (also known as XLA's) are avatars and characters that represent users of the Xbox Live service on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One video game consoles, Windows 10, and Windows 10 Mobile. Avatars debuted on the Xbox 360 as part of the "New Xbox Experience" system update released on November 19, 2008.

Users are able to customize body shape, gender, facial features, hair style, clothing, and "props". They can then display a 2D picture of their Avatar on their Gamercard (although they are still free to use their previous picture should they so choose).

Xbox Live GM Ben Kilgore stated in 2008 that Avatars will only be available for games that have an E10+ rating or lower only (featuring content that is considered suitable for children under 10 years of age). This may change sometime in the future, though presumably in Microsoft's own games if it ever happens, to monitor their usage in mature games. It was announced at Game Developers Conference on March 24, 2009 that the XNA framework 3.1 would have an API to support Avatars in indie games. With the release of Windows 10 and the New Xbox One Experience, the rendering of the Avatars has been changed to offer a higher quality of rendering across different devices.

Users can edit their avatar using the Xbox Avatars application on an Xbox console, Windows 10 or Windows 10 Mobile device or by using the Microsoft Silverlight based editor on Xbox.com. Across all of these experiences, users will have access to their entire closet of items that they've purchased or have been awarded throughout the Xbox ecosystem.

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Wikipedia