Rare talks about the future of Avatars, ‘very excited’ about Natal tech

First-party Microsoft development studio Rare has expressed excitement about what the future holds for the Avatars they’ve created for the New Xbox Experience. Speaking at the Develop Conference, Rare’s head of animation, Louis Ridgeway, gave a glimpse about their future Avatar plans.

First-party Microsoft development studio Rare has expressed excitement about what the future holds for the Avatars they’ve created for the New Xbox Experience. Speaking at the Develop Conference, Rare’s head of animation, Louis Ridgeway, gave a glimpse about their future Avatar plans.

Ridgeway didn’t go into specifics, but apparently there will be more clothing, games and accessories released for use with NXE Avatars. The studio is also “very excited” about integrating Avatars with Microsoft’s new Project Natal motion-control tech.

“We have lots of ideas for the future of Avatars,” said Ridgeway. “There’s going to be more clothing and more games and accessories, and a lot more new ideas using what we have created. We’re very excited by thinking about how Avatars will work with Natal, too.”

Of course, Rare is first and foremost a game development studio, so eventually the discussion turned to games. The studio’s art director, Stephen Mcfarlane, declined to reveal any of their plans for future games, but he did say that working on Avatars has helped streamline their development process.

“We’ve gone along for many years doing certain games in a certain way,” said Mcfarlane. “Now we’ve learnt more about how to work to a fixed deadline, and be more streamlined. Really, Avatars have taught us to be more efficient as a studio, and that’s going to help us vastly moving forward.”

• Are these images of the new NXE features?
• Shane Kim explains why Rare was a no-show at E3: busy with Natal projects

Via Develop