Microsoft announces 'Avatar Famestar' program, cross-game rewards on XBLA

[garyopa]

First title to use it will be 'Wreckateer'.



MS has announced 'Avatar Famestar', which will offer users weekly and daily challenges to compete in multiple XBLA games.

'Avatar Famestar' is a new cross-game program for Xbox 360.

Starting with Iron Galaxy's Wreckateer -which launches next week- Microsoft will offer users weekly and daily challenges to compete in some XBLA games.

"Avatar Famestars is a new program from Microsoft Studios and is part of a select group of games that delivers new and exciting ways to play online with your friends and compete for social recognition," says Microsoft.

So, this means that a variety of in-game challenges will be included in Avatar Famestar-supported games, and you'll earn rewards based on earning Famestar points (ie. Avatar stuff).

Future Xbox Live Arcade titles are set to incorporate the new feature, including Avatar Motocross Madness, Fire Pro Wrestling and Homerun Stars. It is also planned to have Avatar Famestar retroactively added to past titles, such as Full House Poker and A World of Keflings.

It is unknown whether Avatar Famestar will feature its own set of achievements for completing challenges.

Microsoft launched a similar program for Kinect titles a few weeks ago, called Kinect Play Fit, which allows players to track fitness activity on the Xbox 360 and earn Achievements/Awards.

So, don't forget to keep an eye on this new program, which debuts next week.

NEWS SOURCE #1: Microsoft announces Avatar Famestar program across future XBLA games (via) DigitalSpy
NEWS SOURCE #2: Avatar Famestar introduces persistent cross-game rewards (via) JoyStiq

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!

[Anil8tr]

I hope more games across all platforms apply this to their titles. Keeps the games fresh to some extent.

[Battlefield]

Sounds nice, but you can already get avatar awards in alot older games thou. It's not far from 100 games retail/XBLA games combined which have that now.