You Have Lost!

The Xbox 360 price cuts have reached the UK, so I’ve come to accept that I’m going to have to buy one of them. I’m not resentful of the Xbox 360, far from it. It’s that I chose to back the PlayStation 3 horse, one that only got going several furlongs after the 360 and Wii. I’ve come to regret that choice, thanks to some A-1 Sony bungling, but I never felt there was a need to own both of the meaty systems. At this price point, I’m going to have to give in and trade a few months of water and heating for a 60GB Premium. Sure, I’ll be cold and thirsty this winter but I’ll have Master Chief to keep away the blues, and by that I mean the pneumonia.

Before I finally finish the fight, some five bazillion years after everyone else, I’ll get to navigate round the upcoming Dashboard update that Microsoft unveiled at this year’s conference. Now, I’m not going to get into a whole “better than blades” discussion because I’m not familiar with the blades, but I do think there’s something that stands out about one of the changes the Big M are making.

Copy and paste strategy isn’t limited to the video game industry, and I’m aware of that. Diet Pepsi was followed by Diet Coke, Pop Idol by Fame Academy, friends getting girlfriends by me going to Amsterdam. People copy successful concepts because there’s exactly that, successful, and I get that… but come on Microsoft, the new “Avatars” are shameless rip-offs of the Wii’s Miis.

I know that the concept of a visual avatar is not one owned by Nintendo, but the way they’ve been implements into the Wii’s workings is very specific; Miis are simplistic, cartoony, cute and cheerful little mites. Microsoft have tried to differentiate from the Miis by introducing things like clothing (actually a cool addition), scars (not so cool), and a generally higher level of detail, and yet Avatars are exactly what I thought a Microsoft reimagining of Miis would be. As such, I’m not impressed. Maybe it’s amplified by how the popular, normally charismatic Major Nelson is unable to feign interest in them during his walkthrough video (see below).

There’s a deeper significance here, though. The first problem is that this represents Microsoft’s defeatist attitude in the console fight; rather than trying to distinguish the Xbox 360 from the Wii, they’re turning it into a carbon-copy. Sony continue to push the PlayStation 3 as a higher concept, almost experimental console with releases like LittleBigPlanet, Pixeljunk Eden, Heavy Rain and Echochrome, whilst the 360 looks to borrow from other systems with additions like Avatars and Singstar-clone Lips. Having said that, the PS3 Trophies are just as unabashed a replication of the 360’s Achievements, so it does work both ways to some extent. However, the issue I have is that the 360 is not really enforcing its own identity, whereas the PS3 and Wii continue to push in their own directions, for better or for worse. Besides which, can Avatars and Lips pull in the expanded casual market which the Wii has already found? Conversely, LittleBigPlanet has the potential to break the PS3 out of its present market shell, even if that potential is unknown at the moment.

Maybe I’m reading way too much into Avatars, maybe I’m not. Yet in all of this, I’ve failed to make enough mention of the most significant change; the price cuts. If Microsoft continue to dominate the price war over the expensive PlayStation and now more costly Wii, then it doesn’t matter whether Microsoft rename Avatars as Xiis or release SmallLargeWorld. Heck, I’m total proof of that.

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