APPLE OF SONY’S EYE

Phil Harrison on bringing the Eyetoy to market

Sony’s then-executive vice president remembers working with the Eyetoy well, and saw it as a chance for Sony to branch out into something new. “I wanted to expand the audience for computer entertainment beyond the traditional core players, and Eyetoy was a chance to remove the controller from the gameplay equation,” he remembers. “I had seen what happens when you pass a console game controller to a non-gamer – they react as if they’d been given a hand-grenade with the pin already taken out. Eyetoy was a chance to create new gameplay experiences that would never be possible with a standard controller and the team did an amazing job in running with that vision. I’ve heard so many great stories over the years about how a gamer’s non-gaming friends or family had so much fun playing Eyetoy. Without its success, there wouldn’t have been a Singstar or a Buzz – or possibly even a Playstation vr, if you join all the dots.”