American Express offering real-world prizes for Xbox 360 achievements

Up until just a few months ago, Xbox 360 achievements have just been a way to brag to your friends on how much of a gaming god you are over them as you've gone above and beyond in order to unlock your achievements. But Microsoft changed that recently when they began to offer discounts on merchandise within the Xbox Live Marketplace for gamers who reached a certain amount of Gamerscore. Now it looks like American Express is getting in on the "rewarding gamers for their achievements" bandwagon.

American Express announced today that it will be launching its Card Sync Technology with the Xbox 360 which will reward players with real-world prizes like coupons and credit to their credit card. American Express card holders would need to sync their card to their Xbox Live account to which the company would keep track of your achievements and reward you accordingly.

The program will be available to U.S. and U.K. American Express cardholders and kicks off with Halo 4 next week. One reward that will certainly get a lot of Halo 4 players sprinting towards its completion is the reward for the "Lone Wolf Legend" achievement. Players will need to be one of the first 25 people in the U.S. and one of the first five in the U.K. to complete Halo 4 solo on Legendary difficulty. The reward for that achievement would be a trip to E3 2013 with all accommodations paid for.