One Million Dormant Xbox Live Gamertags Can Be Yours Starting Wednesday (arstechnica.com) 22
An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: Are you the type to dash madly toward any new online service's sign-up page even if you think you'll never touch it again, just to lock down your username of choice? As any good geek knows, handles are a precious commodity, especially for free services that don't have explicitly advertised nickname-recycling policies. One online ecosystem, Xbox Live, may have a respite in store for users who want to remove extraneous numbers or characters from their Gamertag of choice. A Monday announcement from Xbox Live PR chief Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb confirmed that a slew of "nearly one million" dormant Gamertags will be made available for qualified Xbox Live Gold members starting on Wednesday, May 18, at 2pm EDT.
Boaty McBoatface (Score:4, Funny)
Is Boaty McBoatface available?
Woohoo! Can't wait! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Do they still charge $8 to change your name?
They don't charge for the first one, but subsequent name changes apparently do incur a charge.
Funny way to spell... (Score:2)
I think I saw how he got his nickname...in Spaceballs.
Re: (Score:1)
He's mentioned on his podcast that he created his gamertag as "Major Nelson" after his TiVo at the time recommended that episode of "I Dream of Jeannie".
what is a Gamertag? (Score:1)
a "Gamertag" is a username for Xbox Live.
Re: (Score:3)
Because your gamertag is how you appear in most online cooperative/competitive games, and how you communicate with others on the platform.
Some of us prefer a nice, clean tag, and don't want to be XxlDankM33ms42069lxX.
Obviously the "good" gamertags went early, and a lot of them have been sitting stale for a while.
Re: (Score:2)
More obviously, stop paying and you will lose your tag, pretty lame stuff by M$, manipulating minors with a sense of loss of identity to keep them paying.
Re: (Score:3)
Not true at all.....your Gamertag is tied to your Xbox Live account whether Gold (paid) or Silver (free). You can switch to Silver and as long as you stay active, keep your tag.
What would I do with them? (Score:2)
I guess it'd be cool having a million gamertags, but what would I do with them all? Oh wait, I think you mean that one million dormant Tags are being released on Wednesday, and I could grab one (or two) for myself.
There's only one name worth anything (Score:4, Funny)
But I would expect that person still has it.