A Gamertag is the universal name for a player's username on Microsoft's Xbox Live. A Gamertag must be unique and can be up to 15 characters in length. Using a Gamertag, any player can be located and messaged from within Live. There are also several websites which allow users of Gamertags to upload photos and information about themselves. Gamertags can be changed using a premium service on the Xbox 360 console (for a price of 800 Microsoft Points), although a given console has a total of four slots for such accounts.
A player's Gamertag account status can be checked using a variety of online tools, this is useful especially when looking for a new gamertag, or confirming a Gamertag exists.
Gamertags can be used in a variety of places, including the original Xbox, the Xbox 360, Games for Windows - Live, Zune, and XNA Creators Club.
Gamertags also contain avatar images (or "gamer pictures"), often associated with certain games or game characters. Individual gamerpics cost between 15 and 20 Microsoft Points, but they are usually bundled into packs; packs of four or five gamerpics usually cost 80 Microsoft Points, while packs of ten typically cost 150.
