Sony's Shuhei Yoshida has dished the dirt on how the company's latest camera accessory will work. The PlayStation 4 Eye comes with a pair of 1,280 x 800 cameras, four microphones and an 85-degree field of view. The two lenses are designed to be used in a variety of ways, including triangulating the 3D space, gesture recognition, Kinect-style body tracking, and in conjunction with accessories like the Wonderbook or DualShock 4 controller. "It's not just a way to identify your player number, it also works like a PS Move," Yoshida said of the new DualShock's light bar. "It's an extension of the PS Move technology that we incorporated into the DualShock so that the camera can see where it is."
The Sony Studios chief used a PS Eye-style AR game as an example, saying that with the original camera, one lens had to do everything. With the new unit, one camera will concentrate on capturing the action and ensuring good picture quality, while the other is dedicated to motion tracking. Another reason that the Move functionality was incorporated into the DualShock is to enable the console know where you're sitting in relation to the TV (and your on-screen character). The company is also aiming to enable users to take 3D pictures and video and store it on the console. As for the microphones in the new Eye and how that'll impact interaction with the PlayStation 4 on a system level, Yoshida wasn't giving up any details. Though he said it'll be incorporated into games (a la Kinect voice commands on Xbox 360 games), he wouldn't give up whether you could use your voice to control the PlayStation 4 on a system level.
Ben Gilbert contributed to this report.
Filed under: Gaming, Sony
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