It was clear as day that Avatars were at the very least somewhat inspired by the Wii’s Miis, the ‘problem’ was getting a Microsoft official to actually admit it. But now we have it — in a recent interview, Xbox LIVE boss John Schappert said that Avatars indeed drew “a lot of inspiration” from what Nintendo has been doing with Miis.

“I have to make a shout out to the Miis and say that Nintendo did a phenomenal job integrating them into the Wii games. There was a lot of inspiration from them,” Shappert said, adding that the Avatars are still “a logical evolution” of Gamertags. “It was a question of when to introduce it.”

Everyone, cross off the “Did you rip off Miis?” questions from your interview sheets. The hunt is over.