Loads of exciting and interesting announcements were made at Leipzig earlier in the week. One that particularly interested Three Speech was about EyePet.
The mechanical or virtual pet has been a popular idea for a number of years now, first in fiction and latterly in reality with variations on the theme like Tamagotchi and, more recently, Sony’s AIBO. EyePet will live an a virtual version of your sitting room, taking up no space and costing you nothing in vets’ bills…
For more about the Leipzig Games Convention, click here.
Leipzig Games Convention, 20th August 2008: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) introduced the availability of EyePet for PAL region. It won’t make a mess on the floor or claw at the curtains – EyePet is the ultimate pet for modern living. Forget the hamsters and guinea pigs and get the perfect first pet for kids and adults alike. Developed by SCEE, EyePet is the responsive virtual pet who reacts to your every move and brings entertainment and fun for the whole family; plus it’s pretty cute as well.
EyePet comes with an impressive array of abilities all made possible by PLAYSTATION®Eye, the next-generation camera for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™). A loveable, simian-like pet, EyePet lives in an on-screen picture of your sitting room as captured second by second on PLAYSTATION Eye. Working in ‘Augmented Reality’, EyePet is fully aware of people in the room and will interact with you and your environment. Place an object in front of the camera that EyePet hasn’t seen before and it’ll know exactly what to do with it, give it something new and it’ll examine it thoroughly. Tickle it by waving your fingers in front of the camera: it laughs, poke it: it jumps, roll it a ball: EyePet chases around the screen after it.
An incredibly lifelike little critter, EyePet gives you all the lovable benefits and interaction of a real-life pet without tearing up your sofa or making a mess on the rug. Kids and adults alike will love to customise, dress it and watch its facial expressions that range from the sweet to the cheeky to the hilarious. It’s all made possible by the power of PS3 which has enabled EyePet’s developers to achieve incredible graphics and animation in its facial reactions, lifelike fur and incredibly intelligent interaction with you, your environment and anything you choose to place in front of it.
EyePet will be available in late 2009, so prepare to bring a furry ball of mischief into your home and a new friend into your life.
how can sony be announcing availability if it’s not out for at least another year? Still the concept trailer looks interesting, but why so long to wait?
Comment by Yakkity — Aug 22, 2008 @ 11:49 am
A game for everybody who lives in the North East of England
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Aug 22, 2008 @ 11:54 am
The second attempt to post here & the last attempt today at posting anything if this does not get submitted…
—
A game for everybody who lives in the North East of England
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Aug 22, 2008 @ 11:56 am
“EyePet”:
A game for everybody who lives in the North East of England
Comment by fanpages — Aug 22, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
@2 sounds like something that Sid the Sexist from Viz would come up with.
Comment by reakt — Aug 22, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
Finally! The PS Eye gets some content!!!! I bought an Eye last Christmas, mainly for the mic, but I’ve been sorely disappointed with the support it has been given after Eye of Judgment - coming up to a second XMas and still no “EyeToy Play” style party game compilation! You’d think with the roaring success of the Wii the Eye would be higher up Sony’s agenda!
Having said that, I downloaded the demo of FaceBreaker last night and for the first time ever used one of the paste your head on a character features. It took ages and I was expecting it to be pants, but I was actually quite freaked out by how much it looked like me! (aside from the huge biceps and rippling six pack! lol)
Shame this isn’t out until next year, it’s the type of thing I would have bought off the PSN (I assume it’s a PSN title) over Christmas, one of those throwaway purchases you get to entertain the family on Christmas Day!
If you remember way back before the Eye was launched Sony made an Eye Sizzle trailer that showed all sorts of exciting promises that you could do with the Eye - like a Minority Report style XMB interface, a guy that picked up a virtual Helmet and put it on his head, a guy mixing tracks on a virtual DJ deck and a guy controlling a robot army with hand gestures. It all looked very promising, but ultimately I put it down to a “target render” tech demo with none of it being real - however that trailer did also feature EyePet (with a girl sat stroking a dog/monkey thing and it jumping on her hand and shoulder), so maybe the concepts in that trailer weren’t entirely made up after all!
One thing that bugs me about the Eye though, and maybe it’s just my room lighting but, everything looks green! In Eye Create you can adjust the white balance to make it look MUCH better, but this should be a universal system option! Everywhere else I use it outside of Eye Create makes the room look off-colour and green, so unless EyePet has white balance settings it will spoil the whole “illusion” of this so called Augmented Reality!
P.S. LOL @ fanpages!
Comment by Apnomis — Aug 22, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
i dont care what anyone says this game is going to rule….well that is until u get bored and have the lads around and after a couple of beers find hilarity in smacking your virtual pet about the place.
i do not condone animal cruelty…im just saying!
Comment by paul — Aug 22, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
@4 [Apnomis]:
If you don’t select one of the female boxers then the character on-screen may then resemble your toned physique.
PS. “Burnout Paradise” uses the PlayStation Eye to show a photo on your driving documents & to send a picture to your on-screen rival during a race when they knock you out to capture the “!?!#£$@ you” moment.
But no, I’ve never felt the urge to buy a “PS Eye” up until now. The PS2 EyeToy didn’t live up to what I was expecting in terms of game-play experience, and I haven’t seen any title on the PS3 worth investing time &/or money in as yet.
If the EyeToy sat on the XrossMediaBar as a kind of “desktop virtual pet” then I may well be interested for the novelty value.
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Aug 22, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
[...] Das auf der Games Convention gezeigte Playstation 3 - Haustier, EyePet, wird erst 2009 erscheinen. Quelle: threespeech.com [...]
Pingback by Gamebox » EyePet erst 2009 — Aug 22, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
we can spank the virtual monkey!
…
*gets coat*
Comment by mobiletone — Aug 22, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
[...] EyePet coming to your PS3 in 09… - at Threespeech (No Ratings Yet) Loading … RSS feed for comments on this post. Write a [...]
Pingback by EyePet coming to your PS3 in 09… | GameBlews PS3, XBOX 360, Wii, PSP, DS News — Aug 26, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
I really want a PlayStation Eye… but only if they ramp up the support for it. At the moment, it’s just really, really not worth it.
Comment by BaseballFury — Aug 26, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
Dear ThreeSpeech,
I would like to raise a formal complaint about the sexual innuendo seeping through these pages. Whatever next? Talk of the trouser snake and the milking of said beast, or how to awaken the Afro clam and the toes of the camel?
You must cease and desist at once!
Sincerely,
Mary Whitehouse Experience.
Comment by Savage( PSN : CartBlanche ) — Aug 26, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
Sony need to wake up big time. When I bought the new Ps eye i thought this could blow the Wii out of the water. Quite frankly it is way inferior even to the Eye Toy. Why? Not the hardware, no thats v impressive. Its the software, there are no decent games for PS eye like there was for Eye Toy. What the hell are Sony thinking of? did they not notice the success of party gaming a la the Wii? They could do the same with Eye Toy and they just dont bother. Its just so sad that such great potential has been left on the shelf to do nothing.
Comment by phil — Aug 26, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
@ phil
I’ve just discovered that a Play style title is making it’s way to the PS3 at long last.
The title is called “PlayFactory” and will comprise of 6 different Eye based games. No details of a release date though.
It’s being developed by the same company that made Buzz Master Quiz for PSP, and is the second game listed on their website below:
http://www.curve-studios.com/games.html
I’m not sure how many games EyeToy Play had on a disc, but 6 games seems quite low, but I will judge it on the quality of the games not the quantity…
Comment by Apnomis — Aug 26, 2008 @ 7:48 pm
@14: Phil.
Wii sucks. That’s why I bought a PS3/360, not to get a souped up Wii
Comment by Tahiri — Aug 30, 2008 @ 11:20 pm
Wii sucks?
Maybe easier to swallow than success.
(Think about it)
In majority, I’d agree that I spare far less time on Wii consoles than on a PS3, but “Resident Evil 4 (Wii Edition)” is worth playing if you are a fan of the series; the control system works so much better than the PS2 chainsaw controller.
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Aug 31, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
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