Sony: Motion Control in development since the days of EyeToy

by JC Fletcher { Jun 17th 2009 at 9:15AM }

The PlayStation Motion Controller may not be as much of a me-too product as some may think, despite being introduced the day after Microsoft's new camera-based motion control device, and several years after Nintendo's. Sony's Andrew House told GamesIndustry.biz that the device has been in development for years:

"It's been a while. If you want to track it back the team has been working on that since the days of the original EyeToy." The EyeToy was released in 2003. That's more than enough time to come up with a name for the motion controller.

House told GI that bundling Motion Controllers in with every PlayStation 3 was "possible, but spring is a long way away." He declined to discuss price, again due to distance from release date.

Tags: andrew-house, motion-control, playstation-motion-controller

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

whylekat @ Jun 17th 2009 9:18AM

Nice so it's gonna bomb just like the eye toy I assume. Makes sense.

Levi @ Jun 17th 2009 9:29AM

I sure hope not.

verymetal @ Jun 17th 2009 10:32AM

I thought Sony was not into gimmicks. Wait, they are losing billions of dollars, ok, time to get into gimmicks. Also, Sony apparently has been working on PS3 sports game using the motion controls for a long time too. I think it makes them feel better to tell themselves these things related to the article, because in all honesty it really is embarrasing for them to do things the Nintendo way.

shaunisadirty @ Jun 17th 2009 10:36AM

Given that Nintendo designed almost everything about the PS1 in collaboration with Sony, but then decided to scrap the project, Sony has always been doing things the Nintendo way..and following way behind at that.

TruthBringer @ Jun 17th 2009 10:50AM

No, basically, they want us to think they've been working on it that long. That way we don't think that they ripped off the Wii, which they totally did, because Sony steals all their "great" ideas. At least Natal offers something that the competition doesn't. And don't say Natal rips off EyeToy, because EyeToy sucks, it always has, and it is far inferior to Natal.

Captain Planet @ Jun 17th 2009 10:56AM

6 years and all they could come up with was that piece of shit?

stormtrooper190 PSN= (im not telling you that) @ Jun 17th 2009 11:07AM

@ TruthBringer:
you still forget that microsoft ript of eyetoy for ps2 AND playstation eye for ps3! natal is far inferior to the playstation eye which CAN do the same things as natal and the old eyetoy but improved.

atrimus @ Jun 17th 2009 11:05AM

um, in this very article someone has already posted three or four links to videos showing Sony experimenting with motion controls (similar to what they showed at E3) back in 2003. so at the very least Sony is being truthfull in that regard. instead of insinuating that they were lying by saying they should've had enough time to come up with a name by now, Joystiq should've at least researched Sony's claim for legitimacy's sake.

and seriously, are people really still into the whole "copying" argument?

Vaitork @ Jun 17th 2009 11:52AM

@John,

Sorry I follow you on the off-topic trail, but I was wondering if you have a script for making downvoted comments as readable as normal, two-hearts comments. I understand the reason behind the light gray color, but I happen to enjoy to read how unreasonable and irrational fanboys can be, and the subsequent (and simply brilliant) burn from Joystiqers, the main reason I visit this site. And yes, I looked around the web and found nothing.

More on topic, I find these attempts to lay off the me-too attitude rather lacking... Even I was impressed with the technology, but well, remember E3. The engineers had that look-what-I-just-found attitude on them. Their expo was not very elegant or prepared... I don't know. It just didn't scream "we've been making this for 6 years" at all.

Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Jun 17th 2009 1:22PM

Considering this isn't the first time the wands was shown, I don't see a reason to say they are blatantly lying. Especially considering one of the demo videos on a PS2 store kiosks around the time of EyeToy Play specifically showed "what we can do with this in the future" and sure enough, they had a bright blue "tracking bat."

However, I still don't think they should have shown this yet because right now all they have ARE the tech demos.

Pat @ Jun 17th 2009 3:19PM

TruthBringer.

a) How do you know that Natal is better when all MS has shown is a concept video, a carefully staged demo (Milo, which those who tried it report wasn't even close to what was talked on stage), a crappy paint program, and a single (possible) game demo akin to an Eyetoy game? The system is not even done.

b) How's the PS Motion Control a rip off the Wii when it uses the PSEye, which Nintendo never had, and probably the innards of a Sixaxis which Sony released at the same time as Nintendo was releasing the Wiimote?

Whether Sony chose to support the Eyetoy more to the so called "casual market" back in the day or not was their choice, but it doesn't change the fact that they could (and have, in fact) been working on the Eyetoy tech for years.

If you are curious check this video from around 2003 showing Eyetoy tech demos before Nintendo even announced they were working on the Revolution project (a.k.a: Wii). Notice how they look like the ideas they are evolving now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpNdkm9s8AY

And if you want more examples similar to the ones shown at this year’s E3 check this Playstation Underground video where there are even more images from the same tech demo, including Z- axis tracking (albeit less accurate reason why they are going with a hybrid solution this time).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V6fPP9DiBw&feature=channel

I guess then that Sony also copied this from Nintendo for their PSP, even though the DSI can’t capture video or even has a decent camera and doesn’t have a game that uses it:

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/08/impressions-invizimals-psp/

SimbaDogg @ Jun 18th 2009 1:20PM

@ Pat
well played, well played....

ill trooper @ Jun 17th 2009 9:19AM

Looks great guys (seriously)... Now please make it actually happen, and try to avoid this dragged-on beta experience like you've done with Home.

shaunisadirty @ Jun 17th 2009 9:19AM

Yeah right, I'm not believing this one. The eye toy was released in 2003 and it took them 6 years to get the camera to track a glowing ball? BS.

The Wii was released in 2006. 3 years following that is prefect time for Sony to develop a prototype controller. Everybody knows they're copying the Wii. STFU Sony, no one wants to hear your BS. 6 years and you have a prototype ugly ass controller with no name, complete BS.

whylekat @ Jun 17th 2009 9:23AM

Yep, right there with ya. So far the only one I know excited for this ugly periph is my little cousin who's a cheerleader and hopes they'll be a baton spinning game. Oh! Take that PS3 fanboys. I compared it to a girl's past time =P

Warlord @ Jun 17th 2009 9:25AM

they might have good games so maybe thats what
their not copying off the wii.

shaunisadirty @ Jun 17th 2009 9:28AM

Warlord: You mean the demo they had on stage where the guy couldn't get his words right and the dude playing couldn't do what he wanted to do? You that, which apparently has been in development for 6 years, and obviously doesn't work? I believe when Nintendo announced the Wii controller, 4 years ago now, they had demos that..wait, they actually worked.

Robert @ Jun 17th 2009 9:31AM

@whylekat

I buying a few of those controllers bring a few pretty cheerleaders to play with my PS3, I am sold :-)

Robert @ Jun 17th 2009 9:31AM

If. If.. not I

Levi @ Jun 17th 2009 9:33AM

only took 2 comments to start talking 'BS.' This community is so unpredictable.

Are you kidding me, it "didn't work?" That demo was the most accurate motion tracking I've ever seen.

shaunisadirty @ Jun 17th 2009 9:35AM

Are you serious? The dude whipping the whip around couldn't hit anything he wanted to, he even kept saying it was hard. He had a tennis racket or something like that and couldn't hit the ball. He had a bow and arrow and couldn't get it to aim right. 6 years and that's how it works. I'm not promoting the Wii by saying this, but if you've ever played one you know it would have worked quite well in all of those situations. Just more Sony BS.

shaunisadirty @ Jun 17th 2009 9:37AM

People who give demonstrations on stage at E3 have lots of practice time so that things go smoothly and look solid. This guy no doubt had lots of time with the controller and that was the best he could do, more proof that this thing doesn't work well.

Levi @ Jun 17th 2009 9:48AM

Shaun, the demo being hard to control has nothing to do with how impressive the technology was. It was far more accurate than the Wiimote, and that's actually WHY it was difficult to do those things. Devs can program for the controller however they want, taking out the need to be 100% accurate if it proves to be too difficult. However, did you see the section where he was fighting the skeletons? That was not only an impressive display of the accuracy of the device, but actually looked fun, and not difficult.

With this kind of accuracy, hitting a baseball with a bat should be just as difficult as it would be in real life. It may not be all that difficult in real life to hit a baseball, but it sure as hell is going to be harder than on the Wii. The possibilities with these controllers are so far beyond the Wiimote. Developers can use millimeter accuracy (which they clearly showed wasn't BS on stage), or if the game requires assistance, they can dumb it down to the level of the Wiimote. This is fact, not opinion - all it takes is a few minutes with Wii Sports baseball and a single viewing of that E3 Sony demo to realize it.

John Z @ Jun 17th 2009 9:49AM

@Levi, and pretty much everyone else:

I wrote up a little Greasemonkey script to add a personal kill-filter to the Joystiq comments section. If someone irritates you, add them to the filter and they will never bother you again. It requires Firefox with the Greasemonkey add-on installed, but I'm sure that's not a problem (I figure most people are using Firefox, and Greasemonkey is too cool not to use).

You can install the kill-filter script here:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/51770

Please forgive the spam in this case (I almost never blatantly advertise myself like this but I figure it's warranted).

Oh, and I have no opinion about Sony's motion tech at this time.

shaunisadirty @ Jun 17th 2009 9:52AM

So they can track "millimeter" accuracy but no one can play it. Therefore it will need to be dumbed down to "wii status" as you say. How does that make it more useful towards gaming? If being able to track more accurately than say, Wii motion plus, makes gaming impossible, then it's completely useless. It doesn't matter how accurate it is if it can't be played.

TheLionOfAzzalle @ Jun 17th 2009 9:52AM

@Levi

I mean are you serious? What did you expect? In this case it's the truth. sony is just copying Nintendo.

Gotta give MS credit. At least Natal is something DIFFERENT. I mean it may be a colossal failure but at least they tried doing something innovative and original.

All sony had to show was a penis...a black one.

Levi @ Jun 17th 2009 9:52AM

lol John you're my hero.

shaunisadirty @ Jun 17th 2009 9:56AM

Wow, typical sony fanboy response there. I'm not promoting any company, I'm calling BS on Sony for saying this was in development for 6 years. I'm also saying their demo sucked. Apparently the Sony fanboy mind is to weak to handle that.

Levi @ Jun 17th 2009 9:56AM

you two are blind fanboys, just gtfo already. You're clearly trolling.

And if you don't think there's any application for millimeter accuracy in a motion controller, you are clearly oblivious to the device's application potential. ANYTHING that involves depth (how close it is to the camera), motion, aiming, will be better with this device. You are a blind trolling fanboy if you're really going to argue that after that demo.

Natal is cool technology, you are right. I think it's going to be pretty cool if they can pull it off. But I do see Sony's goofy wand having more room for application in a greater variety of games because of the use of buttons and the accuracy of the device. I'd like to get both, personally.

Warlord @ Jun 18th 2009 2:32AM

shuan
yeah the wii demos like wii sports tennis was
made for kids and old people u can play blind
folded and hit the ball.

copa @ Jun 17th 2009 10:12AM

John Z, you are a god among men. The source code is elegant, and it also lends itself to an easy downvote-by-userid script.

To save some time, the user id's everyone is looking for are here:

Sprinkles: 2881248
Killjebus: 2091852

frinetik @ Jun 17th 2009 10:24AM

Bless you, John Z. Say hello to killfile, children.

John Z @ Jun 17th 2009 10:31AM

I appreciate the praise (though I think the auto-downvote is a bit extreme; ignoring is more effective than negative feedback, going by how many people complain about being downvoted).

Please spread the word about the script; I really, REALLY hate comment spam, so I don't want to post it "everywhere".

ejordan @ Jun 17th 2009 10:31AM

The PS3 10 year life cycle will be summed up by "me, too."

dark_inchworm (on Steam!) dark inchworm (on XBL!) @ Jun 17th 2009 10:33AM

If you want to block me: 8675309

Levi @ Jun 17th 2009 10:34AM

Sprinkles chill the fuck out dude. You ARE a fanboy and you ARE trolling, just admit it already. I'm not a Sony Fanboy, so you can quit with that already. I really want to get a 360 for Lost Planet Colonies edition and Shadow Complex. Natal does look like cool technology, but I won't get it unless good games actually come out for it. Same with Sony's controller.

I don't wish death on you, the closest thing I think I've ever said on that note is that I wish all fanboys would die in a fire. Fanboys are annoying as hell. I don't know why I'm arguing about this. I just like to play games, I don't fucking care about who makes them. I almost just gave up on console gaming altogether with Killzone 2 came out and proved that developers will sacrifice playability for graphics on consoles. I just don't care, I just want to play good games.

You're probably just going to call me holier than thou again and ignore everything I said, except the part where I called you a troll. Why am I here?\??

golobulus @ Jun 17th 2009 10:37AM

damn, you're stupid. but you can't be THAT stupid if you know the technology inside out... enough to make such a stupid statement... like the one that sits atop ANOTHER stupid comment. point being, we should all STFU.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q3-ULRbO_0

copa @ Jun 17th 2009 10:50AM

Derp de derp derp derp de derpderp.

samfish @ Jun 17th 2009 10:57AM

John, you are officially the best poster on Joystiq.

Indefinite Implosion @ Jun 17th 2009 11:13AM

@TheLionOfAzzalle:
"Gotta give MS credit. At least Natal is something DIFFERENT. I mean it may be a colossal failure but at least they tried doing something innovative and original."

uhm, right...
so Natal uses a camera to track movement of a player, right.
there's another product that did the same kinda thing... yeah, that's right... it was called eye toy and released in 2003.
C'mon now, I will give you that it uses 2 cameras for more accurate tracking and depth perception, but as for face and voice recognition, I'm fairly sure the PSEYE could do that with a software upgrade and it's shown to be able to do face tracking etc.

on another note; I gathered that the engineer on stage (not a presenter person) who was demonstrating PS3 motion control was nervous to start with which led to him being a little crap at it to start, but he showed huge amounts of accuracy by the end of it, such as with the dominoes and the arrow shooting.

redjack @ Jun 17th 2009 11:16AM

Yeah, no crap. Goodbye Tmac.

And thank you John.

stormtrooper190 PSN= (im not telling you that) @ Jun 17th 2009 11:24AM

@ shaunisadirty:
the controllers are for the platstation eye for PS3 not the eyetoy for PS2

Moris @ Jun 17th 2009 1:42PM

@Whylekat: Wow... you seem like a pretty pissed off fanboy youself. Feel threatened?

I'd like to see anyone here complaining about the length of time this motion controller has been in development, try and develop their own (as accurate, and lag-free as Sony's was shown to be). Then come back and complain.

David @ Jun 17th 2009 1:51PM

Wii Motion Plus apparently brings the wiimote's accuracy up a lot, perhaps within a negligible difference with the Sony Controller. Either way, Sony's motion control will benefit from a more powerful console more than anything else. It's a wiimote, period. Definitely more accurate, but with Wii Motion Plus that may well not be the case. As far as software is concerned, the PS3 will be able to handle more, but considering this is not one but two peripherals, and Sony's suppport for the PSEye has been almost nonexistent beyond their shallow launch card game, it's going to be very much wait and see with my interest in some me too (despite experimentation in 2003, this is clearly me too).

Jack Spicer PSN: watsuke @ Jun 17th 2009 2:29PM

The moon landing was fake too! You guys cant believe everything you hear and see. Just because they have tech demos back in 2003 doesnt mean they made any tech demos before 2006, its all a hoax!

Yea, you guys pretty much sound like that. He's not lying, get over it and stop trying to prove he is when there is proof he isnt.

pat @ Jun 17th 2009 9:33PM

TheLionOfAzzalle: How is Natal different?

MS only showed a long non- interactive concept video, a crappy paint application (which Sony had in their demo with much better quality and precision), a ball/Tetris- like game that could be perfectly replicated with the Eyetoy (remember Antigrav?), and Milo, a pre- recorded demo where the player used pre- determined lines to get the virtual kid to react (you can read publication reviews on Milo of those who tried it on the show floor and you'll see it wasn't as interactive as they tried to sell it to be). In the Milo demo the player touches the water and sees her reflection on it (which we have had on the PSEye for quite a while), and then hands the kid a piece of paper. We never see if what she wrote is actually on the paper as the presenter was saying. Between Milo and EyePet (or even Invizimals for the PSP) I was more impressed with the latter as there was true interaction with the virtual pet, the drawing you make actually are replicated by the on- screen character, and they even become usable shapes.

So how is Natal different? For now it is a concept with a loooong ways to go. The ONLY realtime demo they had just reflects that it is an Eyetoy wannabe. The concept is cool, but that's all it is for the moment- an idea. Invizimals and EyePet are already working and coming out in a few months, while the PS Motion Control uses all existing technology so we know it is real.