In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Sony UK boss, Fergal Gara spoke to the “format war” ongoing between the next-gen consoles. Sony’s stance seems to be that the war is more of a marathon than a sprint. Specifically, Gara spoke to the potential for the inclusion of a camera in the system bundle.
“I was never involved in any conversation where the camera was definitely bundled with the console. I’ve seen a suggestion that somebody might have thought that.
“We did think very carefully about it. We had the camera functionality. We had that tech in development and we had the basic box in development. A decision was taken – and I think it was absolutely the right decision – which is, to force bundle a camera is probably against consumer choice. It does not offer the game the choice, and therefore the most sensible thing to do as a gamer friendly brand is give them the choice. And I’m absolutely delighted we’ve done that.
“There is an an advanced, sophisticated camera-based technology there as an option for PS4, but it’s not a requirement. I’m really pleased with that decision.”
Interestingly, the Xbox One no longer requires its Kinect camera to work along with the console. Wonder what prompted that?