A patent filed in late 2011, but which has only been published this month, reveals that Sony is working on its own version of Kinect, Microsoft's popular motion-sensing peripheral for the Xbox 360 (and now PC).
Of course, the argument could be made that Kinect was Microsoft's own version of Sony's EyeToy (indeed, this new patent directly references 2003 trademarks Sony owns), a camera released almost a decade ago on the PlayStation 2 (and updated for the PlayStation 3), but it's too nice a day here to get bogged down in that quagmire.
The patent is for a "USER-DRIVEN THREE-DIMENSIONAL INTERACTIVE GAMING ENVIRONMENT", which would involve plugging a camera into a PlayStation and using it to read both a player's movements and their positioning in a 3D space.
It was filed by none other than Richard Marks, the main man behind Sony's PlayStation Move peripheral.
Now, as with any other patent, remember this doesn't mean Sony will be releasing a 3D camera for the PS3 (or a future console). It just means the company is thinking about it.
USER-DRIVEN THREE-DIMENSIONAL INTERACTIVE GAMING ENVIRONMENT [USPTO, via PSLS]