PS3D

2009 may see the next huge evolution in gaming, according to Neil Schneider, President and CEO of Meant to be Seen (MTBS). He recently told Game Informer that Blitz Game Studios are working on 3D titles that they hope will see release next year. But haven't we been playing 3D games for sometime now, ever since we said goodbye to the 16-bit era and ushered in the age of disc-based games? Yeah, but he's talking about true stereoscopic 3D, the kind that pops out of your screen at you.

“The best part is console support will only need a bios upgrade to work,” Schneider writes. “We are told that the ability to add this capability via bios may be unique to Sony PS3 versus the other console solutions.” Since MTBS are a stereoscopic 3D certification and advocacy group, they probably know what they're talking about. Having noticed the increased revenue recent 3D films have made in theaters, they want to bring some of that profit over to the world of video games. But how will it work? Lets consider that for a moment.

3D movies work by delevering two pictures from slightly different angles; one of which is seen by your right eye, one by your left. The easiest way of doing this is by projecting one image in red and one in green, then wearing glasses with one red and one green lens. The red eye won't see the red image and the green eye won't see the green one. Simple. Of course, no one wants to sit for hours with these glasses on, so a better method is to use polarized lenses for projecting movies. One hotizontally polarized, one vertically polarized, and glasses that match. This method works the same as red and green glasses, but can be in full color, and requires special lenses to project.

Ok, so since we don't have TVs designed to display 3D, and we don't wan't all of our games to be in red and green, how will they pull this off? The only way I can think of is to have glasses with little shutters inside. The picture on screen will rapidly switch between left and right images, and the glasses will sync up in order to ensure each image is only seen by the correct eye. Of course, this will essentially half the frame rate of games, but I suppose they could still look good. In fact, 3D glasses for PC have been around for a while, and I imagine they work in a similar way. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who owns a pair, so I can't see for myself.

But all this talk of how it could be done, draws attention from whether or not it should be done. We all know what happened to Nintendo when they tried to bring 3D gaming to the mass market, but I suppose it's a little different when the feature can be added to an existing console. I'm sure there are none among you who haven't dreamed about this idea at one point or another, but the sad fact is that it will require an additional peripheral (the glasses), and Sony don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to supporting such things. The other thing to consider is, if a game is made specificaly with 3D in mind, will it even be playable in 2D? This is a worry I have with all these 3D animated movies being released these days; once they leave theaters, do you lose a big part of the experience?

None of these questions can really be answered until more details are given about Blitz Games' 3D engine, so I guess we'll have to wait until 2009 to find out. If they do manage to pull it off though, and we get major titles being released in true 3D, then Sony may have finally found something they can do that the 360 can't. That is, until Microsoft announce similar plans of their own....