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EyeToy - Chat Turns PS2 Into Videophone
Thanks to GameSpot for its coverage of Sony Europe's announcement of Eye Toy: Chat for PlayStation 2, a piece of software that works with Sony's Eye Toy USB camera and "allows users to communicate with each other in four different ways, namely text, voice, video mail, and one-to-one video chat." It's also explained: "While engaging in a one-on-one video chat, users will have the option to play games against each other, including chess, checkers, and naval war." The article has further clarification on potential worries for parents: "SCEE is eager to point out that that it has been working very closely with several children's charities in order to ensure that EyeToy: Chat is safe for even the youngest PS2 fans to enjoy."
SCEE is eager to point out that that it has been working very closely with several children's charities in order to ensure that EyeToy: Chat is safe for even the youngest PS2 fans to enjoy. New Chat users will be required to register and verify their details at PlayStation Net. There will be a number of strict safety measures and chat room moderators in place when the service launches this summer.
In other words, it won't be any fun, and nobody over the age of 12 is going to buy this.
Man, those are some ugly people in the screenshots... except for the skinny light-haired person, who I'm not sure weither is a chick or a guy...
That is until the public gets ahold of it and begins televising pr0n shows online to anyone careless enough to call them. It'll be the ultimate prank call....
SCEE is eager to point out that that it has been working very closely with several children's charities in order to ensure that EyeToy: Chat is safe for even the youngest PS2 fans to enjoy. New Chat users will be required to register and verify their details at PlayStation Net. There will be a number of strict safety measures and chat room moderators in place when the service launches this summer.
If you read the article you would have read that.
I hope they have some more board games than the typical handful like chess, checkers, backgammon, and such. It would be nice to get some advanced German board games like Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, any of Reiner Knizia's games or El Grande since this is coming from Sony Europe. I know Capcom released a network version of Settlers for PS2 in Japan that they gave away. Surely SCEE can arrange to give them a buck or two each copy to include something a little more interesting that can be played with more than just two people.
How will they keep the private chats between two people safe for kids? Will moderators invisibly jump from place to place, peeking into the conversations?
Mommy why does that man have no pants on.
The best thing is that there is no way to use the eye-toy without appearing utterly insane. You make a bunch of gestures at the TV!!11 Please always use the eye-toy with your shades open so your neighbors can laugh at you appropriately.
You know how someone looks driving and talking into a hands-free cell phone? Picture that, but talking at the TV. OMFG.
Cheap techology is great -- make digital cameras inexpensive, offer an SDK to grab their output, and folks will come up with wonderful ideas for how to abuse them. Devices like EyeToy are mostly just oddities now, but I'd like to see them used to popularize gestural interfaces.
Arkane Studios' RPG, Arx Fatalis is one of a handful of titles that offers gestural input, with its mouse-gesture-based spells. But this was more a novelty than a boon for usability -- it would have been easier to cast a spell by clicking icons. Perhaps a sequel will allow you to embellish your runes with serifs to achieve subtle variations on an incantation?
Avant Browser offers up a more useful gestural interface -- and I like it because it allows me to execute common tasks more easily. Rather than having to hit a smallish "new window" icon, I can rudely right-click anywhere on a window and sloppily drag my mouse upwards to open a new window.
EyeToy takes this a step further and does away with the mouse altogether; and though I had modest luck with the thing when I played against the noisy backdrop at Toys "R" Us, here's hoping that it's the first among many such interfaces. Perhaps five years down the road, a) gestures will be common, b) we'll laugh at what Minority Report got wrong, and c) we'll thank goofy gadgets like this one for paving the way.
After all, it was pretty silly to have a "Rat" for the Atari 800.
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Don't forget Black and White which allowed you to cast spells with gestures before Arx Fatalis.
Eh, this is the kind of stuff that Kojima loves to put in games! He likes to play with interactivity on controllers, or put sensors like Boktai. Imagine playing MGS4 using using gesture with your hands in front of the Tv to grab guardians neck and... better dont stand near to me when playing!!!
Yeah, and then combine it with what Rockstar have already done in Manhunt - use a USB headset to hear instructions, and then if you accidentally speak out loud or make any noise, it alerts the characters in the game (you can also use it as a deliberate decoy tactic). That approach with the Eyetoy thrown in could be a real winner, though you'd really need to have it as an optional feature to have any commercial success - e.g. you don't NEED a headset for Manhunt, but it can add a lot to the experience.
When the Eye Toy first shipped, I thought that would be the last time we'd really see it. Sure, they demoed video chat and the like, but lets face it, Sony isn't exactly the best and keeping their promises. The Eye Toy shipped with Play, a series of quirky minigames, and I figured that'd be the end of it. An novelty - an interesting novelty, nonetheless, but a novelty.
/.) exchanging their Chat information, and connecting - with video - via PlayStation Net, similair to the way we all exchange Xbox Live Gamertags now. I suppose it could be a huge flop, too, but I'm more optimistic about the Eye Toy now.
And here we stand, a few months later. While it is arguably still a novelty, we've seen Groove, the "real" game the Eye Toy needed, and Chat has been announced, actually delivering on the Sony's promise of video chat. Oh, and third party developers, like Sega, are beginning to show signs of support for the Eye Toy, which I honestly didn't expect.
I'm really excited about Chat. I can see it being popular...I'm just imagining people at the game boards I visit (and who knows, maybe even
Eye Toy has universal appeal. I knew from when I first saw it that it would be popular - especially with the "mainstream" audience. It's a novelty, but one that anyone can have fun with and enjoy. Seeing yourself on TV and using your arms as the controller is simple, intuitive, and fun. Technically, the quality isn't great - but it's good enough. Sony's finally delivering on their promises, and the results are cool - now I'm just imagining what it'd be like if they delivered all the time.