Forget full-body waggle, the thing that most excited me about Project Natal's E3 demo was the promise that the camera could recognise my face, and log me into Xbox Live automatically. Yes, I'm that lazy.
Not wanting to be outdone, Sony Europe's Head of Developer Services, Kish Hirani, announced yesterday during the Develop conference that the PlayStation 3 would soon also support this facial recognition technology, courtesy of the existing PlayStation Eye camera.
This PS Eye will apparently be able to "detect gender and even the age of the face, separate facial features such as the nose, eyes and ears, and even detect whether you're smiling or not." In addition to facial recognition, Hirani says the PS3 will soon also be able to support other similar advances, such as "skeleton tracking".
Whether your favourite upcoming game will support this kind of thing is up to developers.
Develop 2009: SCEE's Hirani Reveals PS Eye Facial Recognition, Motion Controller Details [Gamasutra]