Develop '09: PlayStation camera boasts new features
Some of the advantages boasted by Microsoft's Natal controller are already in the PSEye, Sony said today.
The firm has developed new facial recognition software for the PSEye camera which has been put together after many experiments by both the excellent SCEE R&D team and work with other developers.
"We've got a wealth of libraries available," explained head of developer services Kish Hirani.
He admitted that "it's a lot of fun in the office" and has been tested extensively.
The facial tech can see the position and direction of a player's head and can work out the
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gender and age of the face, and detects different parts of the face including nose, mouth, eyes, eyebrows, shape of the mouth - and even glasses.
Sounds like Sony was caught unawares at E3 as to how much interest this type of stuff can generate, like Natal did. It's good to know what PSeye will be able to do with this stuff. It might make porting between 360 natal apps and pseye easier, which will be good for both platforms.
Sounds like Sony has been aware of peoples reaction to motion controlled devices since the EyeToy, like 6 years ago? Natal was tech bought from another company, not even the M$ own engineers could envision it. M$ has endless supplies of cash thanks to mindless Windows and xbot drones so they can try to keep up.
Microsoft Xbox claims that Natal was something they were working on long before the parent company bought 3DV.
Search for "Natal not derived from 3DV" for the story. For some reason we're not allowed to post links to back up our points on here...
If Sony play their cards right and start pushing the EYE soon before Natal hits the market, they can be in a position where third party developers make games on the EYE first and then port them to Natal without taking advantage of Natal's more powerful capabilities. Much like how 3rd parties develop games on the DVD first and port to blu-ray without taking advantage of blu-ray's capacity.
Microsoft Xbox claims that Natal was something they were working on long before the parent company bought 3DV.
Search for "Natal not derived from 3DV" for the story. For some reason we're not allowed to post links to back up our points on here...
- actually, microsoft claims that they had been working on the motion software for a very long time, not the hardware, they bought 3dv because they needed a hardware solution to their already vast motion software library
Microsoft is a bunch of liers they even said in E3 05 or 06 that Motion software is usless. I love how they contiune to lie because they were wrong. And they cant think of good games thereselves so they steal shit from Sony. Its hilarious.
I was at the Sony session today, and nothing try suggested that this motion stuff was new, or just being announced. It all seemed to be libraries they've had for ages. Maybe I wasn't listening well enough...
Ed is correct. This stuff's been available in the Sony SDKs since the original EyeToy on the PS2. It's just developers never bothered to use it (something I assume the interest in Natal will change). What Sony demoed was just the latest and greatest version, it's not a new library or capability.
@ #2 I bet you're on this site using windows.
im on this site using the PS3 browser.
For all the knowledge on the tech, including vidz on youtube to prove sony's research years ago, my only questions is, so what were they gonna do with it? NOTHING!? the ps2 eyetoy had lil' to no support as well as the ps3eye. For all the demos done in past and a still young system in ps3 you'd think they'd grab head start on 360, by releasing in early fall apps for ps3 eye, hell! bring go! cam for psp go and, show all the possibilities that only seems to come as hindsight. Or maybe this is how a loser drags out a supposed console war.....?
There's been loads of footage released about what the PSeye (and it's predecessor) is capable, much of which was featured on the Threespeech blog back in the day...
Do you guys recall that amazing "Tank" tech demo where you could take a snapshot of anything using the PSeye and use the image as assets for a simple tank-war game?
If they released that then I'd snap it up in a micro-second!
There's so many simple applications that could be released in a very short amount of time that would really bulk up the value behind the PSeye... its just a shame that it took so long for them to even acknowledge their hardware as something that could have a major application in terms of gaming and entertainment!
Now if Sony was to release an app-store for the PSeye with cheap or free tech demos then its likely that they'd not only sell a lot more PSeye hardware, but also reignite developer interest in the platform... something that's going to become increasingly important with the emergence of the inevitable Natal vs PSeye "war"...
The ironic thing is that this time around Sony might well have the price advantage, seeing as the PSeye is already old tech and cheaply available, whereas Microsoft will doubtlessly have to charge a pretty large amount for the shiny new Natal hardware.
personally i doubt the price of Natal wil be as high as some suggest, if it's around £100 then it's dead in the water.
given an inevitable and over due price cut from Sony, if the PSeye and controllers are affordable, as they are likely to be, then a Natal equiped Xbox could be more expensive than a PSeye equiped PS3.
i don't see MS playing that hand, it would be a nightmare given the price of the 3DV purchase.
actually, can anyone remember how much the buy-out was? if we divide the cost by the 360's install base we can get a rough figure (of course that doesn't include R&D elsewhere or the profits to be made from software)
