EyeToy Creator Discusses Product's Genesis

Thanks to NewsObserver.com for reprinting an L.A. Times article discussing the genesis of Sony's inventive PlayStation 2 EyeToy USB camera hardware/software. According to the piece, the hardware designer behind the peripheral is Richard Marks, a "...Stanford avionics PhD who built cameras that guide one of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's underwater exploration robots." He comments on low initial expectations: "If there's one thing that's been hammered into my head over and over... it's that peripherals don't sell, and the camera is a peripheral", and explains the early development of the quirky add-on at Sony's Foster City studios, as he "...bought a Web camera and hooked it up to a computer that fed video to a PS2 prototype." Concrete sales figures for the popular, 'mass-market' accessible EyeToy are also revealed: "By the end of 2003, it had sold more than 2 million units in Europe and 400,000 in the United States. Sony estimates it will have shipped 4 million units by March 31, the end of its fiscal year."

Comments

I agree with the article.

[Sklivvz]

I own one of these cams and I gotta say, I totally agree with the point of the article. It's a totally new way of interacting with games, and it attracts non gamers a lot, because it's so simple. I have had my whole family (ages 9 to 57) playing with Groove.
Also it just works (TM). One would think that a thing like this would have some problems recognising your movements, but I found that it works perfectly right out of the box.
I hope that more innovative ways of interacting with computers/consoles come forward in the near future (Matrix anyone? ;-P)