Now if you’ve ever encountered the EyeToy you’ll know what I mean. Someone will be playing one of those games where you swat at something and before you know it, you’re trying it yourself. Or at least I’ve seen the inverse happen. When we got the EyeToy rigged up at a friend’s place, we quickly got to see first-hand how one peripheral draws non-gamers out of their shells and in front of the PlayStation 2. It’s not exactly as good as a puppy, but girls love it. Hell, everyone loves it. But for me at least, the appeal as past.
This is where this wave of specialist peripherals seemed to miss the point. Firstly, they don’t seem to take care of their target market. Since its introduction, how many EyeToy games have you seen released? I count two from Sony and that bit in the new Harry Potter game. I might have missed a few and there is one or two in development, but that’s a frighteningly poor response for a toy that ‘reached markets no-one else could’. Perhaps it was a fad, but I think it is more Sony missing the boat.
The mainstream audience might not be as discerning as more dedicated gamers, but they sure as hell get bored of something after a while as well. I’d reckon they probably get bored faster: ever wondered if a guy casually popping demons in Devil May Cry really bothers to finish it? Quick, simple, fast – or leave it in their control, like GTA 3 and The Sims did. My point – they like games, but they tire of concepts very fast. Much faster than Sony was pushing out EyeToy titles.
They also missed the gamer market. Did anyone here buy an EyeToy, expecting something mind-blowing? No. It was fun and we saw the potential, but the games never rose to the challenge. I remember countless brainstorms on the web and over beers with what could be done with such an interface. But it never happened. We didn’t even get a lousy House of the Dead knock-off. Unless you are really excited about putting your face on a Tony Hawk's Underground model, the EyeToy has been a dud for Sony as far as their core audience is concerned. Everything released was either too whimsy or, like EyeToy: Groove, not executed that well.
I predict Donkey Konga will go the same way. Okay, it’s not that fair a comparison – the peripheral is only for one series of titles, but the distinction stands. There’s a lot more to the hardware that invigorates the main market, but we’re not seeing it yet, for reasons a bit beyond me. And these ideas quickly become novelty items, never seeing their full potential.
Forget it, I’m just having a diatribe over the EyeToy and the wasted opportunity I see. But I think I can tie those plastic congas back into this. Nintendo’s latest game featuring a monkey beating his Kongas (the drunken party jokes around this one will be terrible) shows that there is a serious interest in what some of us will essentially disregard as bells and whistles - i.e. crap. And I can’t be that upset at developers not driving out games for these peripherals that appeal to us, but everyone seemed so awe-struck by it that no-one does anything more to lure those girls, gardeners and grannies out of their gaming closets.
Or maybe the EyeToy was little more than industry hype and propaganda.
[imagine godlike voice saying "I know everything"]
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