Sony's Dr. Richard Marks: Controller-Free Experiences Are "Limited"

Richard Marks, has lofted some hefty criticism at his own creation, the EyeToy, and Microsoft's Kinect device. According to the Sony man, controller-free devices are "limited". We're inclined to agree.

"I created the technology for EyeToy which we made a controller-less device and it was really neat and it enabled new things but it is not the end-all, be-all in control, we entered limits with that and I think without a controller you run into limits of what you can enable," Dr. Marks tells T3 magazine.

"You can do things like track the whole body, you can have dancing and exercise but a lot of the core gameplay ideas that we want to see happen and want to enable just weren't possible with only a camera," says Dr. Marks. "We would have done that, we look at as much as we could do with just a camera but it wasn't the right choice we felt."

It's the biggest hurdle we think Microsoft face with their motion control solution. They can throw all the R&D, marketing and PR they want at the device — the fact is, there's just not many experiences you can make with a controller-less solution. And sometimes, you need that aspect of illusion. Sometimes, you need to provide an aspect of make-believe. So even if Microsoft overcome all the lag, detection and load issues; they still have to make compelling experiences that make sense without a controller.

And Marks knows this because he's been there before himself.