Sony Demonstrates PS2 Video Conferencing

Thanks to GamesIndustry.biz for its article discussing Sony 's demonstration of a PlayStation 2 using a USB webcam to run a video-conference across the Internet, as showcased at the IPv6 Business Summit 2004 in Japan earlier this week. GI.biz points out that, although this conference was "about the IPv6 [Internet] protocol", according to their sources, "Sony has been encouraging developers to use the EyeToy webcam peripheral to add video communications to their online PS2 games - over the plain old IPv4 Internet - and it's expected that the first games to use the functionality could arrive before the end of the year." The article concludes that this move "would give Sony a technological lead over Microsoft", but is also "likely to raise a number of contentious issues - such as the possibility for abuse of the service."

Useless in games

[MBraynard]

I can't think of a single game existing where this would be remotely useful. Voice? Very useful. Seeing your opponent give you the middle finger after you sniper him? Pointless.

Re:Useless in games

[wan-fu]

What about a game like Ghost Recon or SOCOM where signaling can be just as effective as voice (and maybe even adding a 'cool' factor to the game) and perhaps if the game were to do something like in NS or Counter-Strike (a current or soon to be feature? I can't remember) where voice communications can be overheard by the opposing team? Or how about a game like DDR? I think a game of DDR over internet could be very cool if you could see your opponent/partner. It's not just about being useful either, it's about enhancing the game experience.

Re:Useless in games

[MBraynard]

There are a lot of features in games that go unused. This will probably be one of them. The resolution on most of these TVs will be too low to be good enough picture-in-picture and just think of how much it will slow the PS2 down to have to decompress the streams. The processor is already getting maxed out in many of these newer games anyway.

Re:Useless in games

[MBraynard]

I wonder how that got -1.

Anyway, I too have an HD but the processing power on the PS2 is a big concern.

The game maker has to ask himself how many PS2 players are going to have a big HD TV and broadband and will buy their game. True, there are some, but it is a relativly small number, no?

Re:Useless in games

[Babbster]

Yeah, enhancing the game experience, meaning making it better. Having some 15-year-old moon me while playing a video game is not my idea of enhancement. As far as signaling in a team game like you describe, that's just plain pointless unless the movements are actually mapped and replicated by the avatars on-screen (THAT would be cool). If it's just a little window with a picture, that actually HURTS the immersion factor and would get people killed as they switched attention back and forth between the video window and the game proper. DDR would be a bad idea for a completely different reason in that there's no way - unless the encoding is being handled in its own hardware - that a camera like this could keep up with the movements in a fast song (of course, add that to the delay and, again, you have something that would be more distracting than fun).

Apart from hearing-impaired people who obviously can't use voice features, and maybe slow, turn-based games, video conferencing within a game seems like pure, useless gimmick. Just because voice is cool in games doesn't mean that video automatically has the same potential.

How does this contribute to games?

[MMaestro]

How could this make my gaming experience more fun? I know Sony is trying to make an "entertainment system" with the Playstation line (PSX anyone?) but considering the majority of PS2 owners bought it for the games, how is this going to make games more fun?

Re:How does this contribute to games?

[Anonymous Coward]

How could this make my gaming experience more fun?

Isn't it obvious?

pr0n!

Re:How does this contribute to games?

[Hes Nikke]

you take your snapshot and paste it over your avatar's face. now people can see who they are killing.

Any specs on their protocol?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wondering if they're using H.323, SIP, or some home rolled beast to get this working...besides the codecs involved. I'm curious if this is setup to tie into an existing application/appliance or if they're exclusive to the PS2 itself.

If someone has a link to a white paper please post it!

Woohooo PS2 for the conference room

[CowboyNick]

Sweet! Now I have a legitimate excuse to order and expense a PS2 for the conference room. :)

Bandwidth Issue

[superpulpsicle]

I can't imagine sending voice with any network game I play already.

To send voice & video conferencing image during the game would just grind everything to hell.

Did people forget that U.S. broadband is no where close to 100Mbps.

Re:Bandwidth Issue

[AIX-Hood]

Whatcha talkin' about Willis? Xbox live already does this exceedingly well over even substandard broadband connections. VoIP for these things generally only uses 1.4kbytes/second for each user, and that gets muxed together into a single stream to cut down on bandwidth waste. Video on the other hand uses far more unless they're using mpeg-4 or better compression which would probably be hard on the PS2's relative slow cpu.

Re:Bandwidth Issue

[buffer-overflowed]

Umm VOIP uses a bit more than 1.4KB/sec(and less than 52000bps as well), and it varies from second to second.

I already have a games system that lets me do this

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called a PC

Great.

[sofakingl]

First we get the risk of some guy putting his dong on the head of his MMO character, now we get that same risk moving!

card games?

[pontifier]

it adds a lot to the experience if you can see who you're playing against... especialy for strip poker.

Hah

[General Sherman]

PS2 Camwhores, anyone?

Games?

[fikx]

This doesn't have to be used for games. Video conferencing on a playstion2 could be a killer app just by itself. Instead of having to setup a computer with matching apps and protocols and praying the driviers work, here's a way to get person-to-person video phone calls on the game system you've already got in the livingroom. Sign me up!