Lunchtime Discussion: Avatars

In yesterday’s discussion on the economy the wonderful Kevatron (or just Kev to those of us who know him) bought up Home’s virtual t-shirts, and that got me thinking about our avatars in general. With the Wii’s Miis, the PS3′s Home avatars and the 360′s Avatars representing ourselves in virtual space seems to have really taken off this generation.

Of course for quite a while games have had the ‘create your own character’ mechanic, particularly in sports games, but the Wii’s and 360′s avatars are very heavily integrated into the system. This new sense of identity that started with system profiles, and has now expanded into giving profiles some sort of ‘physical’ representation is something new to this generation, and something that I like. When the 360′s NXE launched I was genuinely excited to tweak and play with my new Avatar, and I’ll even admit to buying a few items from the Avatar clothing store.

I think where the 360′s and Wii’s avatar systems really shine is the integration into games. I know it might seem like a silly, little feature in comparison to the tent-poles like gameplay or graphics, but it really does add more connection to the game. Because it’s genuinely your character that you’ve spent time on tweaking and perfecting, you somehow feel closer to the game. In particular being able to attack the representations of friends of family is a huge bonus for me, although that may make me a terrible person.

In contrast to the 360 and Wii’s integration with the system and titles, Sony have gone in the complete other direction with their Home offering. Whilst the idea of Home is certainly interesting, it seems that the consensus is the implementation isn’t great. However it does seem to be moving in the right direction now, although I’d still like to see some integration into the PS3′s OS itself. It wouldn’t become ‘kid-like’ as the NXE, Home’s avatars are already more mature to start with. At the least I’d be interested to see what Sony could pull off.

Anyway time to open things up once again. Do you spend a fortune on virtual t-shirts? Do you love Home or hate it? Are the 360 and the Wii too kiddy in their approach, or does it make you laugh?