Xbox Achievements will receive a fundamental change says Mike Ybarra

Since its inception on the Xbox 360 in 2005, Xbox Achievements have stayed relatively the same, rewarding players with Gamerscore for completing certain objectives in their games. While this is a great way to compare your overall score with your friends; what about those who may only excel in a limited number of games, and don’t have a Gamerscore reflective of their overall ability? Well this is exactly what Microsoft may be addressing soon, with Xbox corporate vice president Mike Ybarra telling Windows Central that Microsoft is working on “something that fundamentally changes the concept” of the Xbox achievement system.

The Xbox VP stated that the company is “working towards a bigger, more meaningful change about somebody’s gaming accomplishments in history, as a gamer on Xbox.” He then added, “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. You want people to be in the know. This person doesn’t play a lot of games, but they’re world top ten at Halo 5″.

The idea is to compliment, and not replace Gamerscore with a system that allows players to “show off and represent their gaming history and the type of gamer that they are”, whether it be across a vast array of titles, or a select few (which Gamerscore does not accurately reflect currently). While Ybarra was unable to reveal anymore specifics, it will be nice to see a new feature come to the achievement system, which is long overdue for an update. Add to that the impending Xbox One update that will allow players to customize their Home screen, and a new super console, and Xbox is shaping up to have one hell of a 2017.