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Microsoft is teasing changes to the way Xbox Achievements work. In a podcast with Windows Central, Xbox platform corporate vice president Mike Ybarra discussed the Xbox Fluent Design update which is coming to Xbox One in Autumn. Ybarra says the team has ‘bigger, more bolder changes’ in mind, including something that ‘fundamentally changes the concept’ of Achievements, especially in the context of the rising popularity of esports.
The aim of these changes is to evolve Xbox achievements in a way that’ll highlight gamers’ previous accomplishments, their gaming history and complement Xbox Achievements as they are now. Ybarra didn’t give too much away, but said that, ‘We can do a lot more to reflect and let people show their gaming history and their status. Whether it’s somebody who only plays multiplayer in Halo 5 at a professional level, maybe they only have 2,000 Gamerscore, you want to be able to celebrate that person.’ This implies that there’s going to be a focus on how to put a spotlight on people that may have expertise on one game, rather than just those who’ve achieved over a million gamerscore.
Ybarra continued saying, ‘we’re going to go big in the area of letting people show off and represent their gaming history and the type of gamer that they are, far more than we do with Gamerscore’. Is this the end of the Gamerscore? Will we see a more comprehensive breakdown of player achievements, highlighting esports professionals within the dashboard, or even a montage of pivotal gaming moments?
Microsoft is currently testing the new dashboard update with Xbox One owners who’re in the beta program Xbox Insiders. There’s a lot of changes in mind for the Xbox experience and the coming months will give us a clearer idea of the direction Microsoft is taking.
