Sony: PS3 wand is "best of both worlds"
PS Eye does casual, wand does precision.
Sony has said that its as-yet unnamed PS3 motion controller and the PlayStation Eye combo will cover off all the bases and remain relevant, despite Microsoft's hopes for hands-free Project Natal gaming.
"It's not only relevant," US marketing boss Peter Dille said to Kotaku about the wand, "[but] from our perspective we have the technology that provides better precision."
That, he said, "gives us the opportunity to do the best of both worlds". "If you want to do what we're referring to as casual motion games, the PlayStation Eye and the motion controller do that quite nicely."
Sony's E3 press conference - the last of the usual Big Three - saw the platform holder unveil the technology, and the prototype wand with buttons on it, which combined with the camera allows for "millimetre precision". Enough to do handwriting, archery and other difficult gestures.
Despite the strength of the on-stage demo, though, the Sony controller lost the column-inches war to the dreamier vision of Microsoft's Project Natal, which aims to remove the controller from the equation entirely.
Neither product has any particularly advanced games associated with it yet (Lionhead's Milo & Kate looking like more of a prototype), and neither has been seen outside of controlled conditions, but both companies have said that development kits are on the way, or already with, third parties.
