In the constant battle to lure the casual market from the Nintendo Wii, Sony and Microsoft have both put forth their own variations of motion controllers. Both utilize a camera, but only the PlayStation Move uses a controller to help track user’s motions. Dropping the controller completely requires a much more advanced camera, like the Xbox 360’s Kinect. However, Sony did consider using a more-powerful 3D camera at one point, but ultimately decided against it.
In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Anton Mikhailov, Software Engineer at Sony Computer Entertainment America’s Research and Development Department, talks about why Sony decided against the Kinect concept.
“At some point you have to do a cost analysis and say, ‘OK, this technology costs this much, it’s able to do this much,’ and you understand roughly what you get out of it and how much it costs you.”
“So when we were working with the 3D cameras we felt the cost of the camera outweighed the advantages of what it offered.“
Sony has long voice the necessity of having buttons, but it does seem that they were interested in a better camera. Once the price comes down and the tech improves we may see a Kinect-like camera in PlayStation’s future.
