PlayStation Eye due in summer
Video chat, recording and more.
With Eye of Judgement dated this morning and Snakeball promising camera support in July, it was only a matter of time before Sony threw out some words about the PlayStation Eye itself - and here they are, with a summer release date for Europe.
As well as allowing for video chat and online gaming features, PlayStation Eye allows users to capture video and audio clips to the PS3 hard disk, recording in 320x240 at 120 frames-per-second and in 640x480 at 60 fps.
The adjustable zoom lens has a 56-degree field of view for head-and-shoulders capture and close-in audio-visual chat, and a 75-degree FOV for full-body gaming.
And of course there's a fancy pants microphone that can focus on the spoken word for "smoother, more accurate" speech recognition, reducing background noise by going "shush!" a lot. (Or perhaps by incorporating multidirectional voice location tracking, enhanced echo cancelling and things like that.)
When it goes on sale, PlayStation Eye will come bundled with the EyeCreate editing suite to handle all of its PS3 functionality - and, as we've already heard, it will be bundled with Eye of Judgement in the autumn as well as being made available separately this summer.
"PlayStation Eye is a great example of how we have moved forward so significantly with our technology," says SCEE president David Reeves.
"PlayStation Eye has four times the resolution, twice the framerate and double the sensitivity of its predecessor EyeToy USB camera."
"With the technology that we now have at our disposal we will be able to dramatically improve the communications experience enjoyed on PS3," he concluded.