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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

Sony's Eye Toy Previewed, Future Explored 27

Posted by simoniker from the when-i'm-cleaning-windows dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to Boomtown's hands-on preview of Sony's Eye Toy, the forthcoming USB camera add-on for the Playstation 2 which comes with a suite of mini-games. As the preview explains, "The Eye Toy has motion detection capability, so you basically play all the games by moving your hands, your head, or even your legs." Interestingly, future plans for the Eye Toy, which was one of the E3 Game Critics Award winners, are also discussed, showing Sony are committed to using the hardware for more than just the one title: "The next instalment of Eye Toy: Play is already in development, and is due for release this Christmas. It will be a far more music-oriented product, featuring many tracks by popular artists. It will also feature full online video messaging capabilities."
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Sony's Eye Toy Previewed, Future Explored More

Sony's Eye Toy Previewed, Future Explored

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  • I've been watching the status-bar in my empty browser-window for the last half-hour, as it loads what appears to be hundreds and hundreds of very small images-- do they use a separate gif for each f***ing letter or something?

    Slashdotting usually means one long file takes a long time to load-- but this is a whole different problem.

    • Now that it's an hour, I'm concluding it must have an auto-refresh that times out before the page displays. What losers!
      • Works fine here, using Opera. 53 inline elements (images), takes 6 seconds to download and render completely, usable after 2 seconds. HTML has 4 kb, all the images have another 22 kb. 26 kb, that's really not a large amount for a full-featured web site. Just as a reference, the Slashdot main page currently has 31 kb, for me. There also is no auto-refresh.

        So um. PEBKAC? :)

  • Surprisingly good quality (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is anyone else surprised by how good those screenshots look? I had an old usb web cam from logitech (same company making the eye toy) and the pictures were far too pixelated to be blown up on a tv screen.

  • I can see it now... (Score:4, Funny)

    by chendo ( 678767 ) on Saturday July 05, 2003 @08:29AM (#6372038)
    "Masturbation - The Game"

    Point of the game is to see how fast you can whack your thing! You place your package in front of the camera, wait for the countdown, AND OFF YOU GO!
    Stimulation not included.

  • Game On (Score:1, Redundant)

    by neonstz ( 79215 )

    There is a similar device in the Game On Exhibition [gameonweb.co.uk], at least they had one at Barbican and in Edinburgh.

    • It's similar because it's a prototype of this very game.

      I would tell you how good it is, but it wasn't working when I went to the exhibition, nor was the robotron or starwars cabinets. Bah!

  • Great value (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rxke ( 644923 ) on Saturday July 05, 2003 @09:32AM (#6372197) Homepage
    Mom and dad won't be able to tell the kids it's too expensive, for the price of a regular game, you get a reasonable videocam, that you can use on your VCR to boot, can't see how this could go wrong. Also, 'Windows cleaning emulator", Hmmm... Won't Bill Gates be just a little bit pissed off when he reads that?
  • i bet when someone verbally told Apple about the name of this new cam they were like "wtf?!?" only to realize it's the Ocular Toy.

    heh.

  • Sega is coming out with its DreamEye camera... article [eet.com] and pictures [vidgame.net]. Oh wait, it's already out. It was released in the summer of 2000.

    Ok, maybe the dreamcast was pulled before they could sell this outside the japanese market. But, sony coming out with a product THREE YEARS after its competitors doesn't get me too excited. Sega had some other kick-ass hardware: its VMU [planetdreamcast.com] had a much more usable screen compared to sony's almost useless pocketstation [vidgame.net] screen (which sony never released in the US), plus there is a
  • Chris Hecker and gang (sorry for forgetting the name of the people of the gang, Hecker just has the type of personality you can?t forget ;)) had a really interesting collection of camera games at the 2003 GDConf using the ?Shadow Garden? technology.

    The games were simple but amazingly fun. And I bet all of them could become hit games for this new system (a collection of them would be a number #1 seller).

    The cool thing about new technology like is that it is...well?new. If you are an independent or small h

    • A little imagination and you can create the next Tetris.

      My little imagination has children doing cartwheels in front of the camera to rotate the Tetris pieces. Clear the room of hard furniture!

      Even better if the kids have to be contortionists and make themselves into the shapes of the pieces before they could move them. Substitute the on-screen images of the pieces with the still-store images of the contortioned player. Then enjoy the on-screen self-dismemberment as lines get completed.

  • They have fun software for this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zenyu ( 248067 ) on Saturday July 05, 2003 @01:50PM (#6373097)

    I saw the prototype at Sony's keynote at GDC last year. It looked like a lot of fun. They composited the player into an interactive world and you could control it with a "magic wand" (orange nerf ball on a stick.) and it would show all kinds of special effects eminating from your wand. It was basically a game of make believe that the kid can play without the adult around. Or, a party game for the lightly stoned. Or, an amazing virtual reality existence for acid heads.

    I think it's smart of them to release this now considering that many of the playstation players are at that age where they start making poop-machines.
  • "The Eye Toy has motion detection capability, so you basically play all the games by moving your hands"
    Two words...Power Glove...and we all know how successful that was.
    • i actually had a go of the eye toy on tuesday, a dixons nearby has one set up to demonstrate it. After around 10 minutes it was pretty boring. Much longer and my hands would've ached. Probably. Definetly one for the kids
  • It will also feature full online video messaging capabilities

    This is an interesting concept. If your PS2 has an ethernet connection, it would make a "cheap" (as in you already bought it anyway for games) video telephone.
  • Does anybody remember a quite similar application for the original Amiga circa 1984?
  • Having seen this animal in the local shop (was released 4thJuly 03 in the UK), I reckon this has the potential to takeover from the dance mat as the focal point of wet weather 'six year old' party antics. Im a bit worried about 'en masse' kung fu in an enclosed space, but Im sure this will go down a storm.

    Sure the camera images are not too crisp, but this matters little as the game is sharp and the centre of attention. At this price, its a must have.
  • Start adding cameras to consoles with broadband links and one wonders how long its going to be before they could realistically be used to spy on people, either by exploit or built in game back door.
  • Eye Toy: Play is already out here in New Zealand. It's being displayed at pretty much every game store up and down the country, and seems very popular.

    A popular move on the part of retailers is to set up a TV screen behind the store window and have the camera pointing out through it, so you can play outside the store.

    One interesting thing to note is that people who wouldn't normally give a game store a second glance are stopping and playing on it. So you have groups of mall bunnies wiggling their arms a

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