Microsoft Kills the Xbox Avatar Editor Without Apology, Without Remorse

I was mucking around in my Xbox settings the other night and noticed, to my chagrin, that my always happy, waving avatar had mysteriously vanished, replaced inexplicably by a decidedly less dynamic gamer pic. I kept looking, of course, refusing to believe that this “other me” had truly been wiped from existence, erased from the digital space. But after a fruitless search and a quick investigation on the Web, I confirmed the terrible truth: The “Xbox Avatar Editor” had indeed been removed, meaning that any and all vestige of my cartoonified copy had not only been excised…but was impossible to recover.

I pondered this for a time: Was this not a dirty move on Microsoft’s part, to remove what was, at one point in time, a celebrated element of the “Xbox Experience?” Indeed, in the Xbox 360 days, the addition of the “Avatar” was part of the system’s mid-life refreshing—a way to make the Xbox a friendlier, less hardcore experience. A smidge more like the Nintendo Wii, in other words, which boasted its own brand of digital doppelgangers, the garish Miis. But Microsoft’s version was vastly superior…or so boasted the company, anyway, who rubbed its collective hands at the thought of its huge user-base trading money for new avatar glam and apparel. Pets, poses, and trendy clothes...the coolest swag cost real-world cash. At least the Big N wasn’t so shameless.

The Xbox Avatar Editor offered a slew of options for realizing one's digitally stylized, vaguely big-headed self. Although criticized in the Xbox 360 days for being generic, for being another crass money-making scheme, for being a shameless ripoff of Nintendo's own iconic Miis...there's no deny that Microsoft's version of the "on-line self" did bear a certain winsome, dynamic charm.

But the Xbox brand would eventually lose its cache; the celebrated celebrity it so enjoyed at the expense of Sony’s PS3 quickly went sour upon the advent of the PS4. No one wanted the Xbox One with its always-watching Kinect and baked-in DLC. So many went back to Sony (or just remained with Nintendo). And when that happened, the Xbox brand was never quite the same.

In this sense, the Avatar’s death is not so much a metaphor of the Xbox’s rise, but rather, its demise—the slow dissolution of a once mighty empire. The idea of a console filled with a family of happy facsimiles preening upon boot up was once equal parts cute and cool. Now it’s just passe. Even Nintendo, once so proud of its parading Miis, has now resigned the critters to the Switch’s back page.

But more than exposing the harsh winds of changing trends, the Xbox Avatar’s forced retirement strikes at something bitter. More ominous. Consoles and services are supposed to add features, not remove them. Gamers are paying more than ever before for the “privilege” to play on-line, to enjoy facets of a hobby once given free or, at least, made significantly cheaper. Remember PlayStation Home, Sony’s virtual on-line community that was both free and filled with fun activities? Remember Nintendo’s Check Mii Out and Everybody Votes channels? Remember Nintendo’s News and Weather features that allowed folks to spin a glorious virtual globe of revolving content? All gone, never replaced, just stripped from existence…while the base, the fans--the money spenders--are expected to merely shrug and carry on without question or complaint.

So, with this assumption apparently in mind, the Xbox Avatar Editor was quietly removed without apology and, maybe, with just a bit of passive-aggressive spite. So abandoned by the fans, so the fans be damned.

Worse, Microsoft's arrogance was vindicated. No one did care. No one cancelled their subscriptions or demanded, at the very least, an extension—a way to preserve one’s long-running history of cartoonified friends and families and competitors all collected in the same sacred "protected" place. A way to save a digital space both invented and promoted by a company that would then happily violate that same sanctuary, that trove of memories...and flippantly delete them. When Microsoft killed its Avatar program without a means to preserve its individualized contents, the company essentially tossed millions of digital photo albums into the figurative flame. At least Nintendo, when shuttering its Miiverse social platform in 2017, allowed users to download their entire post history. But Microsoft allowing players to save some kind of record of their avatars? Nope. Not worth the trouble, apparently.

And that’s what bothers me most. What do I, the loyal (and paying) Xbox user, get in return for the Avatar loss? What new feature for personal expression is replacing what was unceremoniously cut?

Nothing. Just the usual gamerpics and gamerscores...what we've already had since 2005.

Thanks for the memories, Microsoft. Which is to say, thanks for nothing. - D

Xbox Avatar Editor vs. Mii Channel. The former lack's the latter's catchy nomenclature, but there's no denying that one is a bit more sophisticated than the other (thanks to Maka91Productions and Yoshi400 for the left/right pics, respectively).

The Nintendo Wii's News and Weather Channels were both inventive and rather fun to use. Thanks gumgum99 for the videos!

The last sixty seconds of PlayStation Home, as recorded by Your PS Home.

Microsoft's Avatars could be incredibly fetching, what with their evocative poses and elaborate idle animations. It's the old adage, indeed, of not appreciating what one has until it's gone.

The Everybody Votes Channel, courtesy again of gumgum99.