It's safe to say the PlayStation Move failed to revolutionize motion controls as much as Sony hoped it would. Despite a solid marketing push at launch and the rare third party release, support for the wand-band motion control system has all but dried up. Meanwhile, support for Microsoft's camera-based Kinect system has not; which may explain why Sony is rumored to be returning to its PS Eye roots.
The suggestion comes from a recently spotted Sony patent for a “User-Drive Three Dimensional Interactive Gaming Environment” which would use an camera device to track objects and people in a three-dimensional space using infrared lighting, and then translate that data into a virtual scene.
The patent, which was originally filed last October and published earlier this month, comes from Richard Marks, Sony's main man behind the invention of the PS Eye and PlayStation Move. This indicates Sony is not so much looking to copy the Kinect as much as it is looking to perfect a technology it's been tinkering with for nearly a decade (even if the Kinect's success is the main motivating factor for doing so).
Assuming the patent becomes a reality, it's likely Sony will wait until its next generation of consoles to roll out a PS Eye 4000 (working title). Is this something you'd like to see with Sony's next system, or would you rather it stay on the drawing board?
