We were already blown away by Johnny Lee's headtracking demo using a Wiimote, but it looks like Sony's trying to take it mainstream in a much slicker way. The company was demoing a PS3-based headtracking system at GDC that doesn't require any special IR glasses to function -- it just uses a bone-stock Playstation Eye camera to track your ugly mug around the room. Sony says it's not announcing the system for any games yet, but we can't imagine devs aren't clamoring for this to get official -- this would be amazing for all sorts of genres. Video after the break.

Well, well -- what have we here? Apparently, this PSP (developer's edition, we're told) was spotted at the Game Developers Conference in California attempting to showcase how well the gaming handheld could handle navigation. Unfortunately, the underground nature of the booth resulted in a slightly inaccurate reading, but we're sure it'll do quite alright under normal circumstances when it's (hopefully) loosed in the not-too-distant future.

[Via NaviGadget]

Sure, playing games against other people is fun, but three developers at this year's Game Developer's Conference were challenged to create games for humans and other species to play -- and the results were just as wild as you'd expect. Alexey Pajitnov, the inventor of Tetris, unveiled a concept called Dolphin Ride that features paintball-armed dolphins racing (and attacking) each other to hit as many targets as possible, while Wizardry developer Brenda Brathwaite showed off an actual game called OneHundredDogs.com, due to launch on February 29th. The social-network-based game pits 50 dogs and their owners against each other in various challenges to become the "alpha dog" of their communities -- who will then lead the quest to find 50 hidden virtual dogs by way of other challenges and dog-based activities. The winner, however, was Steve Meretzky, developer of Zoo Tycoon, whose concept game Bac Attack pits players armed with light and radiation against a bacterial colony in a petri dish -- when the player is inevitably overwhelmed by the bacteria, Steve suggests calling the government to arrange a sale. Cheery -- but we'll stick to the heavily-armed dolphins, thanks.

Just a word of warning to Xbox 360 nerds, the Joystiq crew is blowing up coverage at Microsoft's GDC keynote. Yeah, we're technically live there too, but GDC is all about the games so head on over for your live keynote coverage.

Just days ago, we heard that Microsoft's Xbox 360 failure rate was at a staggering 16-percent. Not helping Redmond's cause in making you believe otherwise, one of the hand-picked machines used at the 2008 Game Developers Conference was actually suffering from the infamous Red Ring of Death. Comedic gold? Yes, indeed. Check the video after the jump!

There's not a ton of news for us during GDC (which is why we have our game-obsessed pals at Joystiq), but we did take a cruise around the floor and caught pictures of all the booths that needed be seen. Microsoft didn't have much but a nondescript meeting area, but Sony and Nintendo gave it the old college try, and other big names like Intel and Nokia were showing off their wares. Our favorite was the abandoned OLPC booth, but check out our gallery for yourself.

The rumors were swirling, but the New York Times just confirmed that Phil Harrison is expected to announce the new PlayStation Home service at his GDC keynote, which takes place in San Francisco in a couple of hours. The service is supposed to take elements from Xbox Live and Nintendo's Mii avatars, along with tossing in virtual prizes -- a more tangible version of XBL's achievements -- to wag in the face of fellow fanboys. Phil Harrison also wants gamers to take part in YouTube and Flickr-esque content creation, but how that will tie directly to the PlayStation Home service is unclear at this point. What is clear is that Sony is in dire need of an answer to Xbox Live, which just hit the 6 million mark for subscribers, so we hope Phil has more than just avatars and prizes to show off when he gets on stage at 10:30 PST.

[Via Joystiq]