Microsoft's John Schappert has hit back at claims that their latest ideas, like avatars, are unoriginal for the next-gen console.

He cites World of Warcraft as a "wonderful example" where the MMO concept wasn't new by then but Blizzard gave it renewed life.

"Innovation doesn't mean that you have to do something completely brand new," said Schappert in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz. "World of Warcraft is a wonderful example - it's a game that I completely love. Now I played many MMOs before that, but it was the only one I invested a serious proportion of my life in to get my level 60 human warrior on the Kilrogg server… "

"I think it's easy for people to say that it's not as fresh and new as something that we haven't heard of before," he says touching on avatars.

Of course Microsoft's also investing a lot in their upcoming 'Primetime' channel, promising features and attractions to keep the masses occupied.

"I think our Primetime channel is another example of innovation where we've got time-slotted dynamic on-demand gaming, which is a bit of a mouthful, but if you think about it, it's not a retail game, it's not just your strict downloadable game - it's digitally distributed and it's dynamic," he continued. "Every experience is going to be fresh and new - every day it's going to be different."

Click here to read the full interview between John Schappert and GamesIndustry.biz.



Source: Eurogamer