Coming all the way from Italy, it’s time for another Unscripted 360 Showcase.  Italy just isn’t for fine wine and women…there are also some crazy gamers who reside there. 

He’s a gamer, part of the Xbox Community Developer Program, and ready to reveal his alien heritage.  Get on your feet for…

Tell us some things about you outside of the Xbox 360.

I’m just a regular Italian guy.  I’m a 25 year old university student about to get his degree in web and multimedia technologies. That means I have a strong passion for anything related to IT, computers, Internet and all those boring things. Needless to say that is not my main passion though.

I’m a big Xbox fan, and have been for quite some time, never really cared about consoles before picking up my first Xbox but I gotta say I literally fell in love with it right from the start.

What’s the story behind choosing your Gamertag?

Mhmm, truth or lie? Ok, I’m going to tell you the whole story, sit back and relax.

Back in the days that I used to chat on IRC on a daily basis, I had a very poor client that didn’t even want to save my nickname from one day to another. Soon I got bored of inserting it every time so I used to just press my open hand on the keyboard and hit enter. Well, you can guess the rest of the story right?  I stuck with “Zaam” and changed my IRC client.  Then I thought I would add “IT” (Italy) on Xbox Live just to let everybody know I really cannot speak English.

So far so good on the English my friend.  You’re a part of the Xbox Community Developer Program.  How did that come to be and what are your thoughts about the XCDP?

I’m so happy that Microsoft set up such a program, and truly glad to be part of it. At first I could not apply but somewhat managed to work on my projects thanks to the guys behind 360voice.com. Along the way I found this other developer, Squidpunch, who brought us were we are: we now have a nice Xbox Community site, plenty of ideas, some cool services going and… much less time to game… Hey, it’s called 360Friendspot.com, come pay us a visit.

You’ve recently started to seek beta testers for a new program under XCDP called LiveEye.  What’s that about?

The LiveEye is the first of our projects born entirely under XCDP; we wanted to try and give the Community something nice, unique and well…possibly useful!  Squid had the idea and we went with it.  We got to talking and came up with the little catch phrase “the eye is watching you because YOU asked us to”, which pretty much says exactly what it does.  The program will monitor your Xbox Live activity real time and then show you some nice statistics and detailed reports of the games you have played, and your dashboard activities like when you’re watching a film, listening to music or video-chatting with a friend, and the time you have spent doing these activities.

The whole point of 360FriendSpot.com is to help people find XBL friends to hang out with while online, and we believe knowing the routines and habits of other gamers can greatly help with that!

Of course it’s a huge project and we want it to be exactly like XBL gamers want it, thus we have released it early allowing users to beta test the tool.  We hope this will generate feedback and suggestions to enhance the system, and also give us the ability to monitor the health of the application.

When I think of Italy, gaming wouldn’t be the first thing to mind.  How is the gaming scene as it relates to the Xbox 360 in your country?

Oh you know you’re right. I have very few “actual” friends who own a 360 and not necessarily because they are on the Sony’s side. But I see the Italian Xbox Community growing.  I hang out on the official forums a lot, and see them getting bigger and bigger each day.  Shame we don’t have a Major Nelson, a Trixie or a Deaconblade.  I believe the time is quite right for MS to keep an eye on the Italian community and help us grow!

Italy can’t handle Deacon!  How has the experience with Xbox 360 been for you so far?

Is there something better than perfection? I love the console, the games, the marketplace, the vision camera, the community.  Something missing?  I love it too.

That’s a lot of love.   Describe your gaming setup and your routine for getting your game on.

Well, I have a nice 5.1 sound system since the first Xbox so I was already taking care of audio when I picked up my 360. Pairing this with a 27” Samsung LCD pretty much explains my setup. Nothing extravagant but I believe it lets me experience my 360 in all of its glory.

Which title is getting the most playing time on your Xbox 360?

Lately Saints Row, I put it on whenever I got some free time. But if I had to look at cumulative playing time, no doubt Oblivion would be on top. I have enjoyed it very much, and in general I enjoy games with achievements that are quite hard or time consuming to unlock, it gives you a very rewarding feeling.

What’s your most anticipated yet to release 360 title and why?

Oh I must put two.  I really cannot choose between Halo 3 and GOW. GOW may have much more attention right now cause it’s scheduled to be released way sooner but if I had both games in my hands, I would probably have to buy another 360 and a couple of robotics arts/hands or something to play them at the same time.

Emergence Day is fast approaching!  What’s your most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade release?

May I pretend it’s September, the 27th?

Sure.

Cool. Then I can shout…DOOM!

What’s the best feature on the Xbox 360 in your opinion?

Given my daily “job” I can mention nothing other than the great interaction of the console with the Internet, the XCDP program and the whole new possibilities it’s giving to developers all around the globe…the “My Xbox” section with the ability to send and receive text messages. And wow, I can barely imagine what Live Anywhere will do for all of us gamers.

Do you plan to purchase any of the new accessories for the Xbox 360…the HD-DVD add-on, Wireless Headset and others?

No doubt. Anything that can give me a better gaming and multimedia experience will eventually be in my room. Can’t wait for the wireless headset as I usually hate wires, HD-DVD will be a nice added value and I might also pick up a racing wheel since I have one for the old Xbox and I gotta say it’s a lot of fun.

How do you feel about the Xbox Live Marketplace and what it has meant for extending the life cycles of games?

Awesome, I started buying goodies from day one. Also gamerpics and themes as I don’t mind at all paying a few bucks if they’re cool like my current pic.

As for the game content downloads, I usually only buy them if I’m still playing that particular game. The reason is being in Italy, downloads are not available or they are provided very late. Can you believe that the expansions for Oblivion were just recently released this past week?

Most of the time the content downloads are readily available to us though, so thumbs up for another great feature.
 
Oblivion expansions just last week?  Getting downloads late sucks.  Gamerscore or Achievements?  Which do you play for?

Achievements of course.  I don’t mind how many points an achievement is worth, harder ones are always the most rewarding to get and that “blip” we all know is always great to hear. On a side note, I also run an small achievements site on my personal blog (in Italian of course) with a database of games, guides, tips on how to unlock them etc. So you can well see how I love this aspect of the 360 too.

What would you like to see updated or added in the next Xbox 360 update slated for the Fall?

I would really like to see group chat and now, with the release of the vision camera, I would like to see group video chat.  But I also understand the technical issues developers may encounter to bring this nice feature to us. So, if it’s not this fall, I’m confident we’ll have it eventually.

Ok.  One game.  One shot.  You against me.  Who wins and what game are we playing?

We are playing Halo 2, cause I have it from day one and still can’t get enough of its multiplayer. And I’m glad to tell you would win, cause I would be either yelling and screaming about the lag I see holding the controller with just one hand, cause the other one needs to be coding 24/7.

Me win in Halo 2?  No way.  I suck big time.  Any parting words?

No.  Just kidding!!

Much thanks Deacon for all you do for the community we all love, thanks to anybody who has read up to this point and cares about my opinions and to anybody out there that feels part of the community and gives his contributions to keep it going.

Thanks for brining some of Italy to Unscripted 360 ZaaM IT!