login sign up feeds about

Miyamoto: MS avatars are "flattering"

But aren't anything like ours

Speaking to IGN yesterday Shigeru Miyamoto commented on Microsoft's new avatar system saying that he found it quite flattering.

• related stories

  • Microsoft confirm Avatars at E3
  • more

• xbox 360

  • Braid
  • Saints Row 2
  • 2011 debut hinted for PS4 and new Xbox
  • Heroes over Europe
  • Tomb Raider: Underworld
  • more

• e3 2008

  • 
  • id CEO admits E3 disappointment
  • Peter Moore attacks "soulless" E3
  • New PSN updates now online
  • Bungie "disappointed" rather than angry at Halo E3 cut
  • E3 for the whole family
  • more

The new avatars are part of a redesign of Microsoft's dashboard UI providing access to the consoles functionality and Xbox Live. They represent a new push on the social side to online gaming that Microsoft appear to be keen on.

"I don't really use the term avatar to refer to what we've done with the Miis. We created the Miis with the idea that the people you live with in your house or family, you also live together with inside the TV, and you can use those characters interchangeably in the games you play." said the Nintendo game designer.

He then went on to distance the Wii's approach from the Xbox's similarly designed product.

"To see that a company like Microsoft has taken something we've done and kind of looked at it in a way and brought it out on their platform to kind of show that we've done has become the standard, I find quite flattering. But on the other hand, I think probably the basic ideas behind perhaps those two different systems are different and because of that I think they will probably develop in different ways."