A new rumor claims that Sony has a new motion-sensing controller that will be unveiled at E3. That could certainly be the case, but Sony has played with these ideas for a very long time, and the product may not be as grand, or close to release, as some are assuming.
Sony's E3 press conference already has one rumored announcement: the updated, UMD-less PSP system that has the game press all aflutter. Another rumor has begun making the rounds, although this one doesn't seem nearly as likely as the new PSP. The Cut-Scene is stating that Sony has a motion-sensing controller all but finished, and will be showing the hardware at E3. Some sources claim to have seen the hardware in action, and another rumor says that Sony has already reached out to developers to support the hardware in games. This could be the case, but we're not nearly as confident about the veracity of this rumor. Not only does Sony already have a motion-sensing controller in the Dual Shock 3, it is an absolute certainty that the company is working on new controllers, along with the existence of working prototypes. Patents prove that, but that doesn't mean any of them are going to see the light of day.
Sony is a company that loves showing off tech demos at trade shows, so it's very possible that we'll get a chance to play with something like what has been described. At past shows Sony has showed off WipeOut HD playing in 3D, while stressing that it has no plans to release hardware or software allowing that to happen in the near future. We were once given a tech demo on the PS3 in which a player could draw tanks and ships under the PlayStation Eye; the system then animated the doodles in a multiplayer game. It was a great use of the technology, but, again, we were told there were no solid plans to release an actual game using these concepts.
A demo that used the camera and a head-piece to track your movement and show a 3D image from your point of view was likewise neat, but went nowhere after the tech demos... as far as we know. There is a trend here. The interesting bit is that Sony has long played with this sort of controller. When the Eye Toy was released for the PlayStation 2, there was an issue of the Official PlayStation Magazine that came with a disc including a series of tech demos for the product. The concept was simple: you used any brightly-colored object that the camera could easily pick out of the background and by waving it around you could cast "magic" and interact with the images on the screen. It was a very crude idea, but it also is very reminiscent of the rumored controller that has been discussed lately.
This technology doesn't have to be expensive, or even require much in the way of new equipment. You could simply use any brightly colored object that provides enough contrast for the existing digital camera for the PS3. You could strap an LED or four to the front of the Dual Shock three and pick up the pattern of lights to control movement, if the standard motion-sensing that comes with the controller isn't enough for what you'd like to do. These ideas don't require an expensive new controller. In other words, this rumor isn't nearly as cut and dry as many reports are stating, and Sony has been flirting with these concepts for a very long time. It's possible we'll see a new controller technology announced at E3, but it could be simply a tech demo at Sony's booth.
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