If you’ve been following E3 (since it’s such an obscure event) then you’ll doubtless be aware of Microsoft’s new innovations, such as motion sensing microphones, blinking lights, EyeToys and even this fantastic new “Mii” concept, which is innovative because the Miis are called avatars, and avatar is a word with three syllables in it. That’s pretty inventive.
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto has had the nerve to try and claim some sort of credit for Microsoft’s creation, as if he invented Miis first and is being copied. Speaking with IGN, Shigeru made the following bold-faced statement concerning The ‘Soft’s genius:
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. 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.
Sickening. You should be disgusted with yourself, Shigeru. You’ll be trying to take credit for the Sixaxis next, you shameless thief.