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Sony's Revolution Killer?
jchenx writes "Sony, who was rumored to be developing an online service to compete with Xbox Live, may also be developing a counter to Nintendo's Revolution. From the Gamespot article: 'Sony intend[s] to make it their 'Revolution Killer.' They're working on tying in Eyetoy and some kind of controller similar to the Revolution controller. With a 100M+ userbase, tens of thousands of mature and documented dev kits and the very low cost of producing Rev style games on the PS2 platform they're expecting to mobilize another 50M units over the next 5 years precipitated by a $99 price point in 2007.'" This is a Gamespot rumour control article; At the moment, this is nothing more than conjecture.
I'd take this with a grain of salt. From the article, it's the "a guy I know knows a guy who heard about this" mode of information travel- hardly reliable.
Ignoring that, I don't really see this having any truth. From the article, this is for the Playstation 2, not the PS3.
Next, this would be an accessory for a small amount of games, not an official controller included in every unit.
Also, how they would make it work would be curious, though I don't doubt its plausibility. Nintendo's controller uses spacial recognition (using triangulating sensors) and pitch/yaw (most likely gyros) to do its controlling. If this supposed PS2 controller uses eyeToy, then it would presumably be by pattern recognition. How would the camera recognize the controller?
To my knowledge, eyeToy games recognize the hand, which has a distinct shape (if programmed to recognize the various contortions the hand can accomplish.) As a static object, this would be easier to recognize, but only if it doesn't contrast with any colors or shapes around it. Most people don't wear flesh-colored accessories or clothes; if the controller is white, what happens if it's put in front of a white shirt? What about if the user puts it behind their back?
Plus, the PS2 is being replaced this year (well, or early next year.... sometime before 2010). While there will still be development for it, a lot of it will eventually peter off as more and more people jump to the PS3. If the PS3 can handle PS2 eyeToy software and the eyeToy itself, that isn't a problem in the least; otherwise, there will be low demand.
In short, I really don't see this happening. Even if it does, it will be no "Rev killer" unless it comes standard with every system.
Power consumption and durability were definitely large factors with the DS storage format as well. Actually that can probably be said for Nintendo's decision with the N64 as well. You'd be hard pressed to find a 1st-gen PSX that still works (at least, without having to be set upside down, or any of those crazy tricks people worked out). The drives have all konked out by now. I'll bet you'd have a much easier time finding a working 1st gen N64. The first PSXes could barely take the abuse of being regularly used, let alone the kind of abuse Nintendo designs its hardware to survive.