Nintendo’s Wii has be completely demolishing the competition ever since it launched, and it’s no secret that the other consoles are trying to tap into the newly discovered market that has emerged from this. Coupled with the fact that the PlayStation 3 will be enjoying the upcoming Home, you knew that Microsoft had to have something up their sleeve.

Well here it is, via a supposed leak on the website of a company called Intellisponse, the Xbox 360 will be getting Avatars this coming holiday season. Now, like any rumor, you have to take this whole thing with a large grain of salt, but it seems pretty possible given the circumstances. Intellisponse performs product surveys in order to help companies decide what direction to go in regarding certain products or gauge how much excitement might occur surrounding the release of said product. It looks like they’ve gotten quite a bit of buzz going, but not in the way they might have wished.

Apparently, these Avatars will replace your Gamerpic (sad, because I LIKE mine…) and will feature animations and full customization. They work much like the Wii’s Miis in that you can customize them to your liking and they will appear in certain titles as your main protagonist. Hmmm, sounds fun, but the fact that this will replace something that I’ve spent money on is mildly upsetting, so I’m honestly hoping that this is optional from the start.

That’s about all there is to say at this point. The website that this information was leaked from is currently down, and of course Microsoft has its lips tightly sealed, so there’s really no way to verify if this is legit or not. However, I would honestly be surprised if we didn’t hear more about this at E3 next month.