Perhaps wanting to catch some of that crowd-pleasing lightning in a bottle from Nintendo's fabulous E3 2008 keynote, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe reps showed off EyeToy Play: Hero at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival. The PlayStation 2 game, revealed earlier this Spring, is touted as having one-to-one motion sensing, a phrase we've heard bandied about often since Nintendo revealed the Wii MotionPlus add-on.

UK site DarkZero wrote up the first-person sword swinging adventure game's on-stage demo, which utilised the fluorescent-green foam toy sword to interpret a player's motions. That NERF-life sword comes packed in with the EyeToy Play sequel.

SCEE London sounded pretty proud of themselves for developing the tech, but we'd actually seen it in an EyeToy game before. An early version of Harmonix's EyeToy Antigrav, a futuristic hoverboard game, was initially going to ship with bright green gloves to achieve the same effect. Ultimately, it didn't, depriving us of fingerless glove ownership (again).

Sony to have 1:1 motion-tracking sword game by Xmas [Dark Zero]

At Sony Europe's Gamers Day event, the company took care to emphasise the "social gaming" angle it's pursuing. The company focused on "games where players of all ages socialise through gaming," pointing out EyeToy products, puzzle titles and Buzz!: Quiz TV, where groups can play trivia games on a variety of topics over PlayStation Network.

The overall message seems to highlight the PS3's diversity as an entertainment device, with the aim of appealing to an all-ages audience.

Full release follows the jump:

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We've seen videos of Sony's Tank War Demo for the PS Eye before, and they looked really intriguing. But after having a hands-on today, I'm really excited over the simple tech demo.

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The Wall Street Journal has an interesting, though sort dated, article on their site today about the increasing popularity of unusual, and simplistic controller for gaming.

The short article gives a nod to the Wii, the Power Glove, Guitar Hero, Rock Band and even brain-sensing helmets, but it doesn't really get interesting until it starts talking about what Richard Marks, one of Sony's games division researchers and father of the EyeToy, is up to.

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The latest PlayStation.blog entry from EyeToy specialist Richard Marks—whose proper title is R&D Manager of Special Projects—shows of some intriguing new tech demos utilizing the new PlayStation Eye camera. It seems that someone's been working on technology that will let PS Eye owners created their own levels by drawing shapes or placing real-life objects on a piece of paper.

While only one of the tech demos looks someone playable—a simple Lunar Lander-style mini-game controlled with the SIXAXIS—the others are still impressive. Take a gander and day dream of the possibilities.

Video of New Research Conducted with PlayStation Eye [PlayStation.blog]

Here's how Sony's EyeCreate software actually works. Predictably clean interface, nice big buttons, handy pop-up instructions, even what looks like simple drop-in sound effects/music. You, too, can be creating awful promo videos in no time flat! Click on the pic for a larger version, there's another after the jump.

Sony has added the promised EyeCreate video editing software to the North American PlayStation Store today, a small 9MB download that will allow users to capture video, audio and photos, edit them, use special effects such as colour filters, distortions, art filters and motion trails, and export them to the PlayStation 3's video folder. The software requires a PlayStation Eye camera, something most of us won't have until The Eye of Judgment and the standalone retail version of the Eye arrive on store shelves this week.

I'm PlayStation Eye-less at this point, but fully plan on cobbling together sexy performances of "Hungry Like The Wolf", saturated with comely air-clawing motions, when SingStar finally ships.

Sony have announced a British release date for the PlayStation Eye camera. Expect it on November 7 for £25. For that money you get both the camera and the EyeCreate video editing software. Good times.

When the PlayStation Eye was first announced, we were told it was going to come bundled with something called the EyeCreate video editing suite. And that was about the last we heard of it. Until today! Sony have posted three videos to their PlayStation blog, aimed at showing off the kind of things EyeCreate can do. The accompanying text says it allows you to this:

With EyeCreate you can capture darn near anything and make your own personalised videos... You can also add all sorts of cool effects, record your own sounds and export your video to the XMB. Some of the coolest features include the time-lapse capturing and the stop-motion functionality. If you want to show off your videos, you can drop your creation on a memory stick or USB drive and share it with other PS3 users.

EyeCreate in Action [PlayStation.Blog]

Eye of Judgement may have Crecente and Fahey going bananas, but I snoozed through my E3 hands-on with the card based game. For those puzzled by EoJ or anyone who just doesn't understand the appeal of SingStar, yet still wants to film their wacky PlayStation 3 antics, the PlayStation Eye will ship as a standalone product in just a few short weeks, right alongside the Eye of Judgement bundle. On October 23, PS3 owners can snap it up for a cheap $US 39.99, download the EyeCreate software and video edit their fool heads off.

The official PlayStation Blog provides a quick technical rundown of the microphone-equipped Eye, promising "upcoming games that integrate the Eye in really innovative ways". I'm hoping that developers take advantage of that four-microphone array and explore new PlayStation Eye gameplay concepts that go beyond what the EyeToy offered.

PlayStation Eye, A Little More Info... [PlayStation.blog]