We are at an early crossroads with how we interact with machines, although it's a bit understated. Take a look at multitouch screens on iPhones/Clones, motion-sensing (wiimote and SIXAXIS), and the light use of cameras. Those PSEye games are fun and affordable and gently introduce the world of augmented reality to a consumer public in a way that's not scary.

Even on the Xbox 360, Viva Pinata allows you to hold up a trading card to the camera and the character jumps into the game. Eye of Judgement is the first major title on the PS3 I can think of– now imagine if Nintendo had a camera and the ability to 'see' every Pokemon card. EOJ might be silly, Pokemon (not to armies of kids) is not.

The PS2 had a fair amount of camera games (which you could probably clean out the inventory at GameStop for under 20 bucks), that satisfy our Minority Report UI hunger. The only thing on the horizon for the PS3 that is nothing short of amazing is EyePet (google it for the vid), rumored for a late 2009 release.

Going back to the browser (it's relevant here re: cameras), even though there is Flash 9 available, and that opens the doors to a load of web-based games, we the users are unable to connect to any site that uses cameras. Seesmic, Utterli, even Youtube– to record and post video. Maybe that's a driver issue of the camera, maybe it's the browser, I'm not sure.

What I *am* sure about is how game-changing it would be to see Papervision+FLARToolkit projects show up (google this as well). 3D spaces in Flash, with the layer of visual recognition by way of augmented reality on top of it. Why develop a Big Serious Hardcore 3D Game when you can score points with a casual game instead?

The Wii uses Opera, Microsoft uses, uh, well, yeah okay so there's not IE for Xbox, lol. PS3 uses Netfront. The potential is there, even though the official lines from the various companies seem bullish on internet use.

However I trust Sony in different ways. Maybe because when I open the browser, I see Sony's playstation page with prominent links to Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, et al. The freedom to do what I want with the box in ways I'd never think Sony would let us (Sony is a big company, combined with awesome and root-kit evil–depends on the department).

We might not be able to paint or fly with our hands and faces at -this point- in the game, but as an avid gamer (with kids no less), the potential is huge that can be snatched away by the ever-present Wii and perhaps even the sloth that is Microsoft. Sony just has to let us in.

My apologies for my blog post in your comments

Could you tell us more about your thoughts on camera games?

I'd like to see a real browser like Firefox or Chrome on the PS3 too. They aren't in the web development business. Sony should just focus on the delivering the best platform and game titles to consumers.

Oh and maximize next-gen stuff like camera games, and get rid of that lame browser and bring on Firefox. Or even CHROME (since there is an obvious love of Google present with the PS3).