Sony"s announcement at E3 2011 last month that its next generation portable game console would officially be called the PS Vita was joined by some of the games that will be included when the console is launched sometime late this holiday season. However a new video posted on YouTube shows that its not just console games that can be run on the hardware. The video, which comes from a presentation to game developers last week in Tokyo, shows off the facial recognition software that will be a part of the PS Vita.
The video, which you can see below, shows off how the PS Vita"s front facing camera can be used to animate a player avatar on the screen using the console player"s facial movements and head movements. The demo used the software as a way for the console user to communicate with another PS Vita player using just avatars (a cute Japanese school girl for the woman and for some reason a male with a tiger head for the man). It"s obviously a different take on what Microsoft has been doing for the past year or so with its Kinect motion controller camera add-on device.
As we have reported previously, the PS Vita will have a five inch touch screen, powerful graphics and many different ways to control PS Vita-based games. It will come in two different versions. One will just have WiFi connectivity for $249.99. The other will have both WiFi and 3G connectivity (provided by AT&T) for $299.99.