The PlayStation 3 is getting its own eye, with Sony announcing Thursday that the PS3 Eye camera will be released this summer. The Eye is the next generation of the EyeToy, a USB camera that had been available for the PlayStation 2. But Sony has decided that this Eye is no toy, instead marketing it as a device "designed specifically to work with the next generation of social gaming titles and new services being developed for PS3."
Key features of the newest Eye include a four-microphone array that reduces background noise and focuses on speech frequencies, providing better input for voice recognition and voice chat. The array has multidirectional voice location tracking and enhanced echo canceling. Sony said that, even in the "noisiest of environments," it will reduce "the need to hold or wear a headset."
EyeCreate Editing Software
Low-light sensitivity, a two-position zoom lens and faster frame rates up to 120 frames per second mean that the camera can accommodate improved tracking and responsiveness in a variety of game-playing conditions. The zoom has a 56 degree field of view for close-ups in video chat, as well as a 75-degree field of view so that your opponent can see your entire body react.
The EyeCreate editing software that comes free of charge with the camera enables editing and visual effects for video, audio, and photos. The software also provides for direct video capture to the PS3's hard drive in different modes, such as slow motion and time-lapse.
Sony said it expects the Eye to lead to a new era of social gaming. "With the release of PlayStation Eye," said Sony's Richard Marks in a statement, "we will be able to dramatically enhance the consumer's PS3 experience. Beyond audio/video
chat and the ability to save videos to your PS3 hard drive, PlayStation Eye
opens up a whole new world of entertainment options and adds new
dimensions to games across multiple genres."
Trading Cards
One of those new gaming directions is a trading card component for "The Eye of Judgment" game on PS3, which Hasbro announced Thursday, for release in fall of this year. This is the first announced game to take advantage of the Eye.
The Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based company said that a player will be able to bring creatures on trading cards to life for battle in 3D. The trading cards are encrypted with Sony's CyberCode. Players select a card and place it in front of the Eye "for their respective creatures to come to life" on screen and battle.
"Each creature has various skills," Hasbro said in a statement, "which will determine the outcome of the battle. Players take turns placing cards as they jostle for control of the board; the winner is the first player to conquer five of the nine fields."
Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro company that creates fantasy and scientific games, has developed the cards for the game.
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