Xbox One's online Reputation system to bracket players on their behaviour

Xbox One's online Reputation system has been detailed in an interview with Microsoft's senior product manager Mike Lavin, who has explained that player ratings will determine who gets match-made with who, and why it has been created to encourage people to communicate openly, rather than hide away in parties away from the racism and bigotry.

Speaking with OXM, Lavin began, "There's a lot of folks, a lot of our core consumers who just want to basically kick back and stay in touch with some of their old college buddies.

"That's cool, and Party Chat today and our Party system is leaps and bounds ahead of competitors, from the standpoint of just being able to isolate yourself and cross-game chat. But the problem we see is that this fragments voice communication within games. It's very difficult, because if you're isolated in Party Chat, you're leaving everybody else behind."

Lavin added, "What we're looking at doing is creating a very robust system around reputation and match-making. If people are in your friends list, we're not touching that, we're just making it easier for you to come together. It's really the anonymous side of things where we're making these investments. Ultimately if there's a few per cent of our population that are causing the rest of the population to have a miserable time, we should be able to identify those folks."

Although the actual inner workings of the system are yet to be unveiled, Lavin added that there will be rewards and penalties for sportsmanship and griefing equally, and that your reputation will bracket you with similar players.

When asked if this might lead to an 'evil' side to Xbox Live, where all the bigots and dicks are bandied together, Lavin replied, "I didn't say that. Some people might like to play with people that are similar to them. I would not necessarily want to play with those folks."

He also added that there is no way a group of people could conspire to tarnish your reputation deliberately, forcing you to the realms of Xbox Live hell.

What's your take on the above? Will you stay in parties to avoid the morass of public chat regardless of Xbox One's reputation system, or would you be willing to participate vocally among a group of sane, sensible people?

Let us know below