PlayStation Vita shows off facial control feature: Marketing gimmick or gaming revolution?
The impressive piece of Sony technology, PlayStation Vita, showed off another of its, seemingly endless, features at the Game Tools and Middleware event, earlier this week. While facial recognition is a term many people, who do not live under a rock, are
familiar with, the term facial control is something most are not.
The event, held in Tokyo, was the platform where Sony decided to unveil the feature and it went down pretty well with the audience. Sony is marketing the PlayStation Vita as THE portable gaming and social networking device, with features like Near and PlayStation
Suite, so facial recognition seems to be falling along the same lines.
Yet, facial control seems to be taking the handheld gaming device to a whole new level. For those who are still slightly confused as to what the new feature will mean, it basically will allow gamers to control the game using their face. Much like Microsoft’s
Kinect, but instead of waving one’s hand around like a lunatic on caffeine, the player on the PlayStation Vita will end up looking more like a victim of some uncomfortable bowel movement, with a hint of constipation.
Yoshikatsu Kanemaru, the Sony representative who demonstrated the technology, aptly named the feature ‘face control’. Apparently Sony like to keep things obvious and simple with terms like ‘PlayStation’, ‘PlayStation Portable’, ‘PlayStation Move’ and now
‘Face Control.’ The most original they seem to have gotten is with the PlayStation Vita, which still stirs up a debate as to the correct pronunciation.
While Mr. Kanermaru did not demo any games that were currently using the feature, or had it underdevelopment, face control was intriguing. He also hoped that the feature was something game developers could incorporate into their projects.
The notion of controlling games with one’s face may seem like a farfetched concept, it will be interesting to see how the developers will incorporate the technology into their games.
However, at this point in time, without an actual demo of a ‘face controlled’ game, it seems that the feature could be used in conjunction with other features, rather than on its own entirely.
For example, developers could use the technology to gauge the gamers’ mood or his sense of excitement, frustration, fear and a whole list of other emotions he, or she, may go through, while the game is running.
It can allow the game experience to change accordingly and adapt to the mood, a smile could mean the game maintains what it is doing, a concentrated frown could zoom the view in a little making things clearer, and a sneeze could blur the screen temporarily
and so on.
The PlayStation Vita itself is an impressive piece of kit, able to generate graphics and render frames similar to the next generation consoles already on the market. The dual analogue sticks, multi-touch touch screen and touch sensitive rear pads are all
welcome features as well.
Now with face control and facial recognition features, developers have more ways to bring new and unique gaming experience, yet at the same time there is a concern that it may end up being an underutilized feature that may be may be more of a gimmick, like
the Six Axis on the PlayStation 3 controllers.
Only time will tell whether face control will add to the gaming experience, or simply fade away into the long list of failed features.
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