Sony to predictably rip off Mii, Achievement Points

Submitted by Stephen Munn on March 3, 2007 – 9:45 am8 Comments

I guess it’s still a rumor, but at this point Sony’s infantile foot-stomping all but confirms it. Sony, a company not known for its innovations, is apparently to continue its borrowing streak with something called Playstation Home, which will combine the custom avatar functionality of the Wii’s Mii Channel with the Achievement Points that are popular on Xbox Live. The concept is that by gaining an equivalent of Achievement Points, you can deck out the environment of your Mii equivalent.

Indeed, in an industry where very little can actually be protected by any kind of legal defense, all this really amounts to is an unsurprising attempt to stop the drowning of Sony’s new console. Now that they’ve discovered that it’s not just the tilt functionality in the controller that sells the Wii, and it’s not just pretty graphics that sells the Xbox 360, they’ll get to learn that it’s not just Miis that sell the Wii or Achievement Points that sell the 360.

Where are the games people want to play, Sony? Where is the reasonable price point?

Amusingly, I’d bet that the main reason Sony got upset was because they wanted to be able to surprise everyone with it and spin it as an innovation, rather than have people like me present it with a headline like this. What a fun story!

Via Kotaku.

Cruds

Realistic looking Miis sounds a bit scary to me.
http://www.farbot.com/ Paul

“Indeed, in an industry where very little can actually be protected by any kind of legal defense”

Umm, the Immersion rumble lawsuit?
Subnet6

Well put Stephen.

I think it would be hilarious if Sonys newly unveiled features were officially named, “Mii equivalent” and “achievement equivalent”. It would make sense to name them these since Sony has stated repeatedly that they wish to avoid “confusing” the consumer. HA!

Seriously though, this is just another innovation in a long line of Sony innovations, you know, like motion controlled games.
Stephen

Paul, I’m talking about conceptual innovations, and you’re talking about technological ones. Subnet6, nothing entertains quite like watching Sony try and spin other people’s ideas as their own. I especially enjoyed the Sixaxis unveiling and the response the press gave them.

http://media.ps3.ign.com/articles/705/705941/vids_1.html
http://www.farbot.com/ Paul

Software innovations? Currently the only way to protect those are patents, and those have a mixed history at best.
James

I like dropping a deuce on Sony just like the next guy but I can’t blame Sony for adding non-patented features that the competition offers to their product. It’s simply good business.
Bill

I fail to see how this is a bad idea, it happens in business all the time. Sony is not ripping off anything, but rather taking ideas and turning them into their own. If they are able to pull it off and can combine the two and do a better job then Nintendo and Microsoft…kudo’s. This is the “idea” about console wars, this is why its great to be a gamer at this time. Because now microsoft is going to have to go back and try to one up sony now and vice versa, and the only true winners in this war are us..the gamers.

I’m really excited about this and can’t wait for sony to tell us exactly whats going to happen and when its going to happen. This is going to make my already amazing ps3 experience, even better.
http://www.eklipse.net Mike

Yeah, I’m glad that Sony ripped off Nintendo’s original D-PAD and made a controller for their original playstation. That was pretty ingenious.

In all actuality, this is the area that needs to be handled better. Each major consoler provider keeps trying to segment their market by saying, “I have X and you don’t. ”. When one steps in and says, “Fine, I’ll do X, and Y, and Z, and….” then the playing field becomes leveled and we the consumer win because you don’t have to settle for one versus the other.

Now if we could just get the Big Three to come together, and build the Uber Console 3000 that truly combines all the technologies that each have shown…