There are typical things people love doing in video games—killing, solving puzzles, jumping up and down, getting pissed. More so than those, they love looking at themselves.

The Wii proved this two years ago from today, loosing "Miis" on a world starved for more mirrors. The Wii lets you craft a little 3D dude or lady, which you then take as your player character into Wii Bowling or whatever. Games have done character creation before, but with the Wii, it was the first thing you did when you powered the console, so it was a root experience. Therefore, nobody bowled as the generic brown-haired boy. Why do something so stupid, when you could spend 20 minutes perfecting your virual nose instead?

So Microsoft's choice to update its Xbox 360 menus today, complete with virtual people-makers, probably isn't a coincidence. And the update as a whole is pretty slick, but let's get the navel-gazey stuff outta the way:

The Official Slog Guild, L-R: Brandi, Cindy, Sam M., Brianna, Diane, Sally, Brittany, Jonah S.L., Leslie, Shannon

If the Wii "make yourself" feature seemed silly, this one seems doubly so; MS hasn't released any games in which your dude bowls, dances, or gets into slapfights. He/she merely stands around the screen, reminding you that you indeed exist. Though if there's anything worth pointing out, it's that this mode's programmers are total fucking hipsters. Your clothing options are limited to layered, untucked, trendy, and Urban Outfitters-approved garb (along with what looks like Kurt's tee from the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video). Way to go, friends in Redmond; the whole of Xbox Live will soon look like Capitol Hill.

The main brunt of the change is a menu update that borrows from the iPod's album-flipping mechanic. Hard to go ape over a menu, but this stuff shortens the time between menus and gameplay, so it's fine by me.

Better than that is the "community games" portal, which has finally been opened after months of teasing. This means garage developers can now create and submit their own Xbox games by using dirt-cheap tools and licenses from Microsoft. Once submitted for review, if enough other garage developers give a thumbs-up on MS's forums, that game'll go live on XBL in 72 hours. I tinkered with a couple of the games—one was a compelling, double-gravity version of puzzle game Columns; the other was an even worse version of Too Human. Every community game can be tried out for free with a reasonable time limit, and the full versions didn't appear to top $5. Assuming the community servers stop crapping out soon, this portal is a potential tide-turner, full of free and dirt-cheap experiments.

And Jonah and I are in agreement about the new Netflix portal. After confirming your Netflix info on an Xbox, you can load your PC's "instant queue" on your TV. This was possible before, but never so seamlessly, and while the video isn't HD-pristine, the on-demand nature and wide film/TV show selection make up for it. As a bonus, friends who share a Netflix membership will someday be able to watch movies together through the new Xbox "party" system. MST3K junkies, watch out.

Oh, I suppose I should mention—I was over at Sony's PR HQ yesterday. I received an invite, timed just before this whole Xbox 360 refresh thing, to talk about their forthcoming Home service. Guess what? It's got virtual avatars, too! (I'm afraid neither me nor my guildmates were given sufficient time to build yet another self yesterday, sorry.)

The PlayStation 3 will someday get this Home service for free, but what exactly is it? From my time with the unfinished beta yesterday, it's a watered-down Second Life. Your 3D self walks around a small, central plaza between buildings, and you talk to other people via text or voice chat. Some of the buildings have mini-games, from pool to Flash games, and others have music players. During my test, most of them had screens blasting Sony advertisements at all times.

Sorry, Sony fans. The whole thing felt like a junior-sized, no-quest World of Warcraft region. People stood around, had idle chatter, clicked through dance "animations," and tried to get groups together to play such-and-such video game online (the last of which they could've done in that particular game's menus instead). I can't stress enough how tiny this "virtual world" felt; there was nothing to do other than try out little flash games and talk to strangers on the Internet—the latter being close to my least favorite activity in life. Home came off like a desperate grab to get people to notice the PlayStation 3—or spend real money to get fake clothes/accessories/furniture—rather than a thought-out, compelling way to gather nerds online. [Note: Microsoft hasn't ruled out charging people money for extra virtual clothes on their service.] I'd rather load an Xbox friends-only party than stand in a virtual lobby and listen to random dudes type cuss words in Spanish.

And today, Nintendo has nothing new to announce for the Wii. This is because they are too busy outselling the dickens out of everybody else. What recession? Bring on the spoiled brats for Christmas!