Xbox fanatics, who have been longing for a cool username on Xbox Live may now have their own after the online ecosystem announced that it is making dormant Xbox live gamertags available for others. One million Xbox Live gamertags will be offered starting on May 18, Wednesday.
In a statement posted on his official blog, Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, the company's Xbox Live programming director, said that the Xbox Live gamertags will be released to qualified Xbox Live Gold members, who are active users and have at least one year of Xbox Live Gold tenure.
The gamertags will be available for a period of 24 hours to give equal chances to all Gold card members in various countries. The gamertags came from inactive accounts from the original Xbox, where the online ecosystem also derived the gamertags in their 2011 release.
"These accounts never migrated to Xbox 360 and as a result they have been inactive for quite some time," Hryb further explained.
Hyrd said that there are various gamertags available to choose from, and users must be patient enough to get their desired tags. The gamertags come in various categories, including proper names; pop culture references; types of food; Geography and travel; Science and Technology; Math and numbers; animals; and some of the superb inventions of all time.
Gold members could access the gamertags in Xbox official website, Xbox App on Windows 10 and on the Xbox One console. For those owning Xbox 360, they have to access the newly-released gamertags from Xbox app on Windows 10, or an Xbox console because it is not available on Xbox 360 console.
Xbox Live Gold members could view their tenure from their account in the profile section using an Xbox One console or Xbox app on Windows 10. Changing the gamertags would not affect the Gamerscore, friend list or achievements.
In other news, it was revealed that Xbox Live policy only allows one free gamertag change request once in a lifetime. If they still want to change their gamertag after the first, then they have to pay for $10 for the fix, Ars Technica reported.
Xbox Live Gold members could start looking for their preferred gamertags at 2pm EDT/ 11 a.m. PT at Xbox.com, the Xbox app on Windows 10 and on the Xbox One console. Check out the video below on how to change Xbox Live gamertags: