Microsoft have announced that as of the 12th February, you will have the chance to win prizes by gaining achievements if you can match the challenge they put to you. With $500,000 worth of prizes to give away, the goods themselves are pretty decent, as Microsoft have teamed up with Old Spice to get you all earning achievements.

Unfortunately, this is a pilot scheme at the moment, so once again, those outside of the US will not have the chance to participate in the scheme. There are plans to take it out of just the US and bring it to Europe as well, but that won’t be happening just yet.

The full details of how to get involved and what you could win are below:

Since Xbox 360 gamers love to be rewarded, we are happy to announce the Old Spice Experience Challenge.

Xbox 360 is teaming up with Old Spice to bring the first Rewards Challenge to Xbox Live. Gamers will be charged with increasing their gamerscore by 1,500 between February 12 and April 12, 2007. That’s 60 days to bring your overall gamerscore up by 1,500 for the chance to earn a bounty of rewards. In order to participate, you need to have a valid Windows Live™ ID with your Xbox LIVE® gamercard linked, be a legal resident of the 50 United States and District of Columbia (expect future challenges to be global in scope) and at least thirteen years-old.

Reward Package Qualifications

• Level 1 (Gamers who have a gamerscore between 0-4,999 at time of entry): Game Picture, Dashboard theme, Contra for Xbox LIVE Arcade
• Level 2 (5,000-9,999 gamerscore at time of entry): Level 1 Package, 100 Microsoft Points and a contest T-shirt
• Level 3 (10,000+ gamerscore at time of entry): Level 1 Package, 200 Microsoft Points, contest T-shirt and Fusion Frenzy 2

In addition, Old Spice will give Level 1 and 2 the gift of experience by upgrading their Rewards Level for 2007.

Think you can do it? With more than $500,000 in total rewards, such as Microsoft Points and Xbox 360 games, it is time to tackle those unbeaten games and start unlocking Achievements, because this Spring the rewards go beyond just having an impressive gamerscore.

Be sure to log on to www.xbox.com/rewards on February 12 to sign up for participation. Reward quantities are limited so gamers who reach the set goal will be awarded on a first come, first served basis only.

The official press release is actually quite confusing. At the start, you will be seeded into one of three categories, so you can easily tell what prizes you are playing for. The challenge? Basically, the first challenge in the Xbox Live Rewards Program is to gain an increase of 1,500 Gamerscore Points before the 12th April. Make sure you sign up as well, otherwise you will miss out.

It should be noted that for some of the challenges (presumably those that are in the pipeline) will require either a Gold or Silver account, a memory unit or Hard Drive, and sometimes specific 360 or XBLA games. This is because, all being well, as Microsoft develop the rewards scheme they will look at making new challenges and making them harder for everyone.

Xbox Rewards is not just about playing online and racking up your Gamerscore—you don’t even have to be an Xbox Live member to participate and score some great rewards. As the community responds, the program will grow and new challenges will be announced. Some will be open only to certain Rewards levels, some may be specific to certain games, and others won’t even require you to turn on your Xbox 360.

If us Europeans want to see it though, we are going to have to hope that the people of the US sign up and enjoy the program to make it all worthwhile. If it doesn’t go according to plan, MS could potentially scrap the whole idea (hence why it is a pilot run). I can’t see why no-one would want to do this since the first challenge is really easy; just buy an EA game or two and finish that in an hour with all the achievements. Perfect!

Still unsure about anything? There is a good interview over on GameInformer, who had the opportunity to chat with Kim Janzik, Director of Global Marketing for Xbox, who explains a couple of things, the most important of which are below.

GameInformer: Looking at the levels and how everything breaks down, say hypothetically I already have 10,000 Gamerscore points. I still have to get another 1,500 points within that 60-day period to qualify for the prizes, right?

Kim Janzik: That’s correct.

GI: You’re not guaranteed to get prizes if you get the 1,500 points? It’s going to be the first people to get those 1,500 points?

Janzik: That’s correct. So, you are guaranteed to win a dash theme and a gamer picture. What you are not guaranteed to win—unless you’re one of the first roughly 70,000 to complete the challenge—in those cases, that’s when you’re eligible for the Live Arcade game, the Microsoft points, the retail game and the shirt, depending on where you are with your experience.

GI: Do you take the Gamerscore where you start in the 60 days or when you finish after you’ve gotten the 1,500 points.

Janzik: It is where you start in the 60 days.

GI: Will the levels carry over to the next contest, and how well you did on this challenge be posted anywhere on your Gamer Card?

Janzik: The levels will carry over to the next contest, assuming we do have subsequent challenges. In fact, one of the rewards per se that you can earn out of the Old Spice Experience Challenge is if you do complete the challenge, and do complete the 1,500 Gamerscore achievement points in the two months, you’re automatically given a level bump to the next level, should there be a future challenge. So if you were in level 1 and you complete the challenge and we have another challenge after this, you’ll start at level 2 automatically just because you completed the first challenge.

GI: Now, if all of the prizes are gone, you’ll still retain your level?

Janzik: Yes, you will still retain your level. In regards to your question about the Gamer Card, your level will not appear on your Gamer Card initially.

GI: So, hypothetically, you said that you might work with specific publishers or just specific games, for that matter. Microsoft is releasing a potentially big hit later this year called Halo 3. What could you potentially envision basing this around Halo 3?

Janzik: (Laughs) Very good question. We’re not privy to certain achievements that might be built into that game, for example, but we would work with the studio to create a challenge around the appropriate achievement where certain gamers did get that achievement—whether it’s an early achievement or a later achievement, I don’t know, but they get a certain reward.

The great thing about this program is it does allow for a fair amount of flexibility to make it fun for the community and give gamers the ability to show off those accomplishments and build a lot of excitement around the games.

GI: Is this for gold members only?

Janzik: This is actually for any member. In this case, we wanted to open it up to the broader community and make it as inclusive as possible.

It all sounds pretty interesting. We Europeans will now just have to wait and see what becomes of it. If successful, we will get a chance to win some prizes; if it fails, then we won’t ever see it over here for a pilot run. Can you really see this failing though? Let us know below.

Thanks to Syphon, Colby and nofear360 for submitting.