360 Dashboard Update: Avatar Props/Other New Features Require Per-Game Title Updates

Come August 11th, you'll be able to plunk down real world cash (or, I guess, Microsoft Points) for items that your 360 avatar can carry around with them. For example, a pirate-themed telescope from "The Secret of Monkey Island" or the above chicken from...somewhere. The idea is to set yourself apart from other players with this unique doodad.

Unfortunately at the time of the update you won't be seeing your carryables appearing in games, as games will need to release a title update before props (or any of the other new dashboard features) appear in-game.

Ben Smith is the Director of Program Management for Xbox. Basically that means he leads the team that designs all the software that makes up the operating system for the Xbox 360, so he should know what will and won't appear on August 11th. Here's what Smith had to say regarding avatar props:

"When we build the core technology that we put into our software developer kits, they also have to have the base Xbox Live update so developers can enable [new features]. So we won't see games built with all of that functionality that we see in the Xbox Live update until after the update launches. It'll be in either one of two paths. Either new games would have those new features or old games would need a title update to integrate that functionality."

Considering games won't feature props for some time, you'll really only see them on your own dashboard and occasionally when browsing your friends list. So yeah, not exactly super visible, given the expense. You may want to hold off under "rewardable" props start appearing. After all, those are free!