http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050819/kane_01.shtml
SIGGRAPH 2005: Beyond the Gamepad
At a SIGGRAPH 2005's session devoted entirely to the game industry, a panel of notable developers discussed the future of gaming, focusing specifically on third-party peripherals and the world beyond the hand-held game controller.
Interfaces have always been an important part of gaming, said moderator Alex Pham of the LA Times, from the one-button Atari joystick to the complex driving wheels, bongo drums, and dance pads of today's market. With games like Karaoke Revolution and Gran Turismo 4 leading more and more people to purchase hardware accessories that enhance their gameplay experience, one begins to wonder just what the future of game controllers might look like.
The first half of the session consisted of game and controller demonstrations by the various speakers; the second half of the session was a moderated Q&A.
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Sony Computer Entertainment America
The most interesting of the demos came from Richard Marks, Manager of Special Projects at Sony Computer Entertainment America, and involved his increasingly popular EyeToy.
The first demo highlighted a View Tracking system that allows the EyeToy to adjust the in-game camera based on movements of the player's head in space. Marks played a first-person shooter for the audience, and when his character came to a corner, he was able to duck his head around for a brief peek at his opponent. View Tracking uses about 25% of the CPU power of a PS2, Marks said but less than 1% of the power of the PS3.
The second demo featured a gestural interface in which the EyeToy tracks and translates a user's hand motions, based on simple color keying. Holding a simple wedge of neon-colored Styrofoam in his hand, Marks was able to select and rotate objects in the game, effectively turning his hand into a spatial mouse. In addition to eliminating the need for gloves or other devices, he noted that this allows the EyeToy to track multiple objects at once, allowing for two-handed gestural control and other gameplay innovations.
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Mod: What do you think are the key components of a next-generation gaming experience?
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Marks (SCEA): Well at Sony we're working on taking the EyeToy into 3-dimensions .
[At this point he narrated the audience through another demo, in which he used hand gestures to cast magical spells via a dimensional force field a virtual plane located about one foot in front of the player. Only the person crossing the threshold of the plane was able to cast magic a second person standing in the background was not recognized by the camera.]
[He continued the EyeToy demo by showing an idea for a virtual potter's wheel, in which the user rotated their hands around an imaginary lathe to create 3D pottery. In a third demo, he showed how the console could move a group of butterflies both in front of and behind the image of a player, tracking the position and occlusion of a colored ball.]
[Lastly, he showed a Matrix-style bullet-dodging game, in which the player physically leaned in various directions to avoid bullets coming at his on-screen character.]