Wave goodbye to EyeToy, say hi to PlayStation Eye
by Justin McElroy 
{ Apr 26th 2007 at 9:22AM }
The camera will be bundled with the EyeCreate editing software which will allow you to edit video, photos and audio clips add visual effects and then save them to the hard drive. You'll also be able to use different capturing modes like slow-mo and time lapse. What we currently don't know is exactly what this technological wonder will cost you, or exactly when we'll be able to start pointing it at our crotches. Hit the release for more details, or the higher-res pic in the gallery.
Gallery: PlayStation Eye
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
sheppy @ Apr 26th 2007 9:28AM
It's cool looking and all that, but I see it and think "these are not the droids I'm looking for."
RoroCo @ Apr 26th 2007 9:29AM
Johnny #5????
Dave @ Apr 26th 2007 9:30AM
It's hideous.
Konny @ Apr 26th 2007 9:32AM
Oh GOD.. if they have face recognition, they must be able to recognise and filter crotches and genitals... i dont need to be seeing when im playing flOw.
Robotochan @ Apr 26th 2007 9:36AM
U L G Y You ain't got no alibi, you ugly!
Looks like a logitech webcam with a bad rectangle afro
jason @ Apr 26th 2007 9:38AM
Yay, more peripherals to detract from the console's actual use, PLAYING VIDEO GAMES. Good work Sony.
MaX PL and the 360 r4pe Tr4iN @ Apr 26th 2007 9:45AM
im a playstation hater, but i'll admit that that thing looks nice.
i was just thinking recently about, what if microsoft released a microphone i could place near my tv so that i wouldnt have to use a headset.
looks like this is exactly what i wanted, but unfortunately its coming to playstation. oh well, i hope it works well and is priced reasonably.
OrganicShadow @ Apr 26th 2007 9:59AM
Wow....no more HD? I smell trouble in whythefuckwontitrecognizemycardineyeofjudgement land...
Seriously, I would rather 720p @ 30fps and 640 @ 60fps than the 640@60/320@120 combo. This is going to be the whole EyeToy nightmare all over again without HD. Guess we'll have to wait until PS4 before we can use an EyeToy that knows the difference between our shadows and our bodies....
I was really looking forward to this and I am quite disappointed. :(
Chris @ Apr 26th 2007 9:40AM
I really cant see the use for this apart from making videos for.... nothing. At least the 360 has face recognition (in 1 game though).
Todd @ Apr 26th 2007 9:41AM
Not sure if I would want something that bulky sitting on top of my TV.
Almack64 @ Apr 26th 2007 9:46AM
@ #2 That's the first thing I thought too.
"Playstation Eye is Alive!!"
And for you young-ems who have know idea what we're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Circuit_%28film%29
samfish @ Apr 26th 2007 9:48AM
Yay! Another product that won't work worth a shit! REJOICE!
Oh, and Short Circuit rocks. But I always liked Batteries Not Included better.
Chocolate Starfish @ Apr 26th 2007 9:53AM
It's like part 2 of the "I'm a Mac" ad where PC gets a webcam taped to his head... and then the webcam gets a speaker taped to its head. In part three, the speaker will get a credit card swiper taped to its head so Sony can bill you by the minute for its use.
Doc @ Apr 26th 2007 9:56AM
what the fuck is the speaker for? can't my tv handle audio? I have an idea lets just throw $35 on the ground and set it on fire! like all my friends with the vision cam...
Liqwid @ Apr 26th 2007 10:00AM
I don't think that's a speaker. I do believe it's a wide-array microphone, Starfish. What's sad is that Sony just had to take the word "Toy" off of the name to make it seem as though they aren't childish but when in doing so shows something quite contradictory.
Liqwid @ Apr 26th 2007 10:02AM
Oh, and do to add: We just need to see if Sony lied to everyone about this being an IP camera, being that you could set this up anywhere and view it anywhere around the world, no matter where it is, through your PS3.
Keef @ Apr 26th 2007 10:02AM
cant u just wait to see that 640 x 480 goodness streched over your 1080p 50" Screen....
thats going to be sexy.....
Virduk @ Apr 26th 2007 10:03AM
I think you'll find its a microphone, not a speaker. As for whats its for...well Singstar is one pretty obvious use. Then there's that odd game Eye of Judgement.
JodyAnthony @ Apr 26th 2007 10:04AM
RoroCo, Thats exactly what I was thinking!
Im sure it will be cool, but it is fugly.
Kelvin @ Apr 26th 2007 10:23AM
@liqwid
"Toy" off of the name to make it seem as though they aren't childish but when in doing so shows something quite contradictory."
Who told you that?
I hate people like you, because you presume stuff thats not implied.
SOny never said that, nor has any exec insuitated that, yet you posts it like its fact.
Theres no proof of what your saying, stop making stuff up as you think is what happened. their are millions of reasons why the new name was changed, maybe its because it does more than the eye toy does, but neither of us truly know why, so lets not pretend like we do.
paralipsis @ Apr 26th 2007 10:29AM
One photo is not exactly enough to be sure, but it seems to me like that flat base is fixed. Doesn't seem like the best attachment option when more and more people have flat screen displays of one kind or another...
Jack of No Trades @ Apr 26th 2007 10:29AM
To Sony:
Your a stupid fucking company. You had me buy a $600 ""HD"" console so "I" could play movies and shit in HD. What the fuck is this non-HD camera shit? If buy a ""HD"" console that means I want ""HD"" add-ons as well.
jason w @ Apr 26th 2007 10:36AM
Hey ive played the hell out of UNO online. Theres always some goofy people in there and its good for a laugh. I hope PS3 adds that fun to the little camera.
Almack64 @ Apr 26th 2007 10:36AM
@ Kelvin
Wow man way to whine for Sony. Anybody that has any logical sense can follow the trail and come to a reasonable deduction (Yes that's a valid use of logic) that that's the reason Sony did that. You say "maybe its because it does more than the eye toy does", that is beside the point. When does a product update make a rebranding necessary. They could have simply called it the "Eyetoy 2" or the the "Eyetoy HD" (... oh wait) The point is a drop of the word toy was not necesarry and therefor was done for a reason. I wonder what that was hmmmm...
Kye @ Apr 26th 2007 10:41AM
Good Sony news:
I saw Ridge Racer 7 (obligatory over-exaggeration on the letter "i") today and I. Want. It. Bad.
Laughable Sony news:
Uk Games store "Game" has an offer currently going- Trade in your OLD consoles for the PS3. You'll get a trade-in value of £170 if you bring in an Xbox 360 and £120 for a Wii!
Bad Sony news:
That cam is fugly.
And now over to Tom for the weather.
Keef @ Apr 26th 2007 10:42AM
@ Kelvin
do u seriously think they would admit that they changed to name to not make them look childish??
you seriously think that?
sheppy @ Apr 26th 2007 10:43AM
God how I yearn for the day the word "gay" isn't used by idiots as an insult.
Jason @ Apr 26th 2007 10:49AM
So this camera offers is not HD?! That's so gay...
Sorry, that's so "sheppy".
Another lie and undelivered promise by Sony!
Jack of No Trades @ Apr 26th 2007 10:52AM
fu
A HD console should have a HD camera! I spent $600 for the damn console. $100 for a HD camera wouldn't be shit.
Kye @ Apr 26th 2007 10:55AM
Also I think they should have went with a higher resolution at lower frames per socond.
Your eyes only see at ~25 fps, so anything above that really is ok. Not saying that you don't get (a very) slightly better image at higher Htz, but it really doesn't matter much.
But of course we're going to have someone say, "WE NEEDZ iT 2B REFRESHIN @ 120 FRAMES PER SECOND!!!!1!!1 FOR MAXIMUM QUALITY!!!1"
Todd @ Apr 26th 2007 11:22AM
@Jack of No Trades
I think in order to make the camera HD ready, it would probably cost another $600. o.O
Todd @ Apr 26th 2007 11:00AM
@Jack of No Trades
I think in order to make the camera HD ready, it would probably cost another $600. o.O
Keef @ Apr 26th 2007 11:03AM
@ Todd
not really sen as 1.3mp is about 720p.... and i can probobly pick up a 1.3mp cam for pennys nowdays lol
Pete @ Apr 26th 2007 11:04AM
And people said the HD DVD drive was ugly.
Nmaster @ Apr 26th 2007 11:09AM
The ultimate in soul-stealing technology...
sheppy @ Apr 26th 2007 11:16AM
"So this camera offers is not HD?! That's so gay...
Sorry, that's so "sheppy".
Another lie and undelivered promise by Sony!"
What is it today with people flaming me? Are you people so cranky today because your stepfather didn't give you his special loving last night or something?
mike @ Apr 26th 2007 11:24AM
http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/2004/11/23/graphics/isight.jpg
Seriously, back when these things weren't built into all Macs, they were damn cool. Sony, you're gonna copy the name, why not copy the important stuff?
Sidepocket @ Apr 26th 2007 12:03PM
Um, question.
Its 2007....why dose it have a microphone that big!?!
Seriously, that is a 1997 microphone. WTF?
ixalon @ Apr 26th 2007 11:26AM
For a webcam 640x480 is a pretty high-resolution, especially at that capture rate. Would people wanting true HD (720p or above) from a webcam be willing to fork over the big bucks it would likely cost? If you do a quick search on ebay for 720p webcams you'll find a rather large shortage! If you widen your search to 720p video cameras in general, you'll see they go for about $500.
As for the 'speaker', yes, it's an array of 4 microphones which should allow for groovy things such as location detection of audio sources (e.g. your voice) and filtering out all but one audio source from many.
Both the high fps and the mic's functionality could lead to some pretty nifty and novel gameplay elements... We'll have to see what the developers make of it.
Jason @ Apr 26th 2007 11:27AM
Shep, it's because people don't like you and you're a hypocrite.
For example, you moan that people who use "gay" for derogatory comments are idiots, but then you retort with a gay stepfather innuendo.
Vidikron @ Apr 26th 2007 11:28AM
@32
I think you'll find that those cameras don't capture video in HD. Still image != video
Also, while an HD camera would have been cool for video chat or something, it's rather obvious most of you are clueless. Why all this talk about stretching a 640x480 image onto a widescreen TV? That's not how a camera is used in most games. The video is usually shown in a small box on part of the game screen. Why would you expect the camera to fill up the entire screen when playing a game? That makes no sense. Where would the game itself be?
heavyness @ Apr 26th 2007 11:40AM
i like the ability to change the setting of the camera's lens from hot to cold by twisting it... very nice.
Keef @ Apr 26th 2007 11:41AM
@ Vidikron, on most Eye toy games you take up most of the screen.....
so obviously a better quality cam would look and run better.
and seen as the webcams are 640 x 480, it WOULD strech across a big ass screen... and would look shitty
Boss Tempo @ Apr 26th 2007 11:44AM
Wow - that is the ugliest looking sorry excuse for a piece of hardware I've ever seen in my life. I'd seriously take the gyroscoping robot over that goofy thing.
Props if it can actually work with a game.
Thumbs down if video editing is just one other thing your'e supposed to do with this console that doesn't have anything to do with gaming, along with playing virtual house, running linux, folding@home and watching movies.
Viva La Sheppy.
Vidikron @ Apr 26th 2007 11:46AM
@42
What makes you think it's not simply going to place the image in the middle of the screen unstretched? I think the bottom line is that an HD video camera would be too expensive.
Keef @ Apr 26th 2007 11:56AM
@ Vidikron, its stupidly obvious they wont.....
They wont make dedicated webcam games and then crop the thing into a small box so u have to squint to see what you are doing on screen.....
Trace @ Apr 26th 2007 12:08PM
@ ixalon #38: 720p is about 1 megapixel. I ask you this: type in "megapixel webcam" on eBay and see how many results you get. What's that? You get lots? And how cheap are they? Whoa! $8!
mj @ Apr 26th 2007 12:09PM
I'm not shocked at the low specs. I don't know if EyeToy games were big sellers, but it seemed to me like that should have been a BIG Wii-like breakthrough for them. They just didn't care enough to break the EyeToy out of the "child ghetto" that gameboy used to occupy. Think of the health benefits angle that Nintendo used, their family angle, the excitement from even college-aged gamers. Sony didn't need a knock-off motion sensor, they could have done the entire Wii lineup with a better eyetoy and some colorful accessories.
But with their current priorities they need a cheap camera for affordable game bundles, maybe SingStar and who knows? PlayStation "EyeSports" someday? That's why this is so cheesy, and why they added in the mic.
I am shocked at the business decision here. They have demonstrated the success of their cell phone "Walkman" and "CyberShot" lines and told their stockholders that they were going to do this on their gaming stuff. This doesn't seem to line up with that.
As for HD, even the MIGHTY ps3 has some issues with HD content - the tiny default HDD is one of them. Plus, how easy is Sony going to make it for people to point their PSEye at a HDTV and capture BluRay Spiderman to their HDD? Silliest rumor of the year, hands down.
smudley @ Apr 26th 2007 12:28PM
just a thought...
sony (and others?) already have hd cams on the market with er... usb connectivity...
has anyone tried using one of these as a web cam?
Vidikron @ Apr 26th 2007 12:27PM
@47
Ummm... that $8 webcam runs 10-15 FPS at that resolution and only does 30 FPS at 640x480.
@45
I still think you are wrong. I don't think the image will be stretched like that. I think it might be resized to take up the middle of the screen, but will maintain its original aspect ratio. Sure, it wont look as good as a true HD video cam, but I think people are making a much bigger deal outof this then needed. What's absurd is that if they had made an HD camera and charged $200 for it everyone would be bashing them because of the price. Can't have it both ways.