Slimmer PS3, Sony Kinect Competitor A Vague Possibility

There are rumours floating around, as usual. We hear vague mumblings and suppositions all the time but there have been slightly more concerted noises made around the possibility of a new, slimmer form factor PlayStation 3. Now, Eurogamer seems to have gotten a Sony source to deviate from the usual “no comment” and into a kind of vague and playfully teasing response of “never say never”.

The “new” PS3 Slim is almost three years old now and while it is obviously doing a perfectly good job for Sony, making things smaller and cheaper is always a big attraction for anyone trying to sell multiple millions of units across the globe. Shuhei Yoshida responded to EG’s questions about revised hardware by cagily saying that they “haven’t announced anything new on PS3 in terms of hardware revisions,” but that the company “should never say never.”

Thats not all though, remember those Orbis sketches that showed some quite spectacularly ugly people prancing about in front of a set-top thing? Well, that seems like it could possibly be related to the subject of EG’s next question to Yoshida, about their Move tech and how they explored Kinect-like technology. Yoshida admitted that the company “haven’t been able to really fully make use of the potential of PS Move.”

When pressed on whether Sony would revisit Kinect-style technology in the future as their previous concerns about accuracy and resolution are solved through better technology and components, Yoshida refused to rule it out, saying “Well, these technologies continue to evolve, so our hardware guys are always searching for and talking to different tech providers, so never say never.”

Very cagey, very vague but quite interesting nonetheless. On one hand, it’s nice to know that Sony isn’t closed to continued progression – either small hardware revisions or sweeping new approaches. On the other hand, it makes them appear a little bit reactionary and for a company that has innovated so much seemingly forgotten tech in the games industry, that’s a shame.

Source: Eurogamer

29 Comments

  1. “Very cagey” makes me think of Beyond.

  2. They could even go the external psu, that would be oki with me, if it meant the case it self would be smaller and more silent.[img]http://www.demama.info/g.gif[/img]

  3. If they make a PS3 slim that is the same size as the PS2 slim, i can imagine it getting very hot as my PS2 slim used to be hot after a gaming session and may result in a rise of YLODs unless they use powerful fans that can fit inside the new slim.

    I would imagine Sony are researching a Kinect clone so that they can use the PSGreggs proccessing power in order to help developers code something that is not the typical gimmicky stuff. Such as Total War as that begs for a Kinect port. Point and give orders verbally. But i can see Sony releasing the clone and then forgetting about it for a few years only to panic at the board meeting and try to support it despite it being left to gather dust. ;)

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