Xbox 360 Feature was Everything, Please Bring it Back

The Xbox 360 is 20 years old this week, and fans all across the internet have been sharing good memories they had of the console.

I was 12 years old when I got an Xbox 360 for my birthday, and I remember playing absolute bangers on it like Tomb Raider: Legend, Dead Rising, and Gears of War. Okay, probably games I shouldn’t have been playing at that age, but whatever.

As time went on, that generation of gaming really proved itself with some incredible games launching over the next eight years. Halo 3. Fable 2. Mass Effect. GTA IV. Mirror’s Edge. The list goes on.

One feature from the Xbox 360 in particular has got fans calling for it to make a return, though, and that’s the Avatar Editor.

In November 2008, the Xbox 360 received an update dubbed the “New Xbox Experience”. The update was notorious for removing the popular ‘Blades’ dashboard in favour of a new menu.

Although it proved to be popular at the time, many nostalgic fans have come to miss the Blades over the years.

However, one thing that the New Xbox Experience added were the Xbox 360 Avatars, characters that users could customise and have appear next to their profiles.

You could customise the avatar’s face, hair, clothing, and accessories. The store would also often add content based on new and existing games, TV shows, movies, and other brands, where you could buy new items for a tiny price.

If you wanted to dress up your avatar as Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat, a Spartan from Halo, or even Batman, you were able to do that provided you could afford the Microsoft Points.

Microsoft

Bring them back, Xbox

“I miss having Guilty Spark as a 'pet', I also miss having to earn these as rewards,” reads one comment on the Xbox Reddit page.

“When I bought the Xbox One, I noticed they did away with the Avatars from the 360,” reads another comment. “It stopped being fun after the 360.”

“Feels like everything, even video games, have lost the whimsy and fun of the 2000s and has just become so corporatized,” added another.

The Avatar feature was expanded to Xbox One in 2017 as part of the “Next Generation Avatars”, though the feature wasn’t nearly as popular.

The feature was sunset earlier this year, while the Xbox 360 avatar store was discontinued in July 2024 following the shutdown of the Xbox 360 Marketplace.