Hasta La Gadget!

Just in case you weren’t really sure how deep into this 3DTV thing Sony is, senior director of Sony Europe Mick Hocking announced the PS3’s update for Blu-ray 3D movie playback will be released in September — but it won’t stop there. Expect future firmware upgrades that give the PS3 3D rendering for photos (.mpo files), any broadcasts it can pick up on PlayTV, and even YouTube videos. Not running out the door to buy one yet? CVG reports the rest of the presentation was devoted to extolling the virtues of 3D to hardcore gamers in racing games, God of War, or LittleBigPlanet. Demos so far haven’t completely convinced us the PS3 is capable of rendering games in high enough resolution to satisfy, but if Fat Princess 2 features a good 3D implementation, someone hide our credit cards, please.

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment

PlayStation Blu-ray 3D update arrives in September; 3D photo, PlayTV and YouTube support to follow originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony may have an impressive lineup of 3D HDTVs, but only the LX900 series comes with the requisite glasses for out-of-the-box 3D enjoyment. Thankfully, the company sells active shutter specs separately, and they’re now on sale — you’ll find pairs shipping now for $150 a pop at the Sony Store and several small e-tailers via Amazon. Keep in mind you’ll still need an IR emitter to sync those shades — also available, for a $50 extra charge — and likely a 3D Blu-ray player (or a PlayStation 3) if you want to have anything to watch. Isn’t the future grand?

Sony’s active shutter glasses now on sale, $150 buys your eyes a third dimension originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s early days yet, but NPD claims that revenue from US sales of 3D TVs and standalone 3D-capable Blu-ray players has exceeded $55 million in the first three months of availability. Mind you, this steady growth comes despite the absence of some major players. While that number might sound big, it’s tiny in comparison to the total number of TVs sold each month in the US and, according to our friend Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis at NPD, sales are expected to remain small throughout 2010. Regarding those much maligned 3D glasses, only 10% of those surveyed by NPD cited “looking silly” as a main concern. Instead, the biggest concern was not having enough glasses on hand for everyone looking at the set. A concern driven by cost, undoubtedly, and a dearth of survey participants from New York’s trendy Lower East Side.

Disclaimer: NPD’s Ross Rubin is a contributor to Engadget.

Continue reading US consumers purchase $55 million worth of 3D TVs and Blu-ray players, despite the glasses

US consumers purchase $55 million worth of 3D TVs and Blu-ray players, despite the glasses originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Jun 2010 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like Sharp’s keeping its word — next month, the fourth-largest LCD TV maker will launch a slate of new 3D TVs in Japan, just as planned. Based on the same Sharp Quattron quad-pixel technology that made George Takei’s jaw drop, the new LV-series of AQUOS panels will come in 40-, 46-, 52- and 60-inch sizes when they debut July 30th, and feature 1080p resolution, UV²A panels and a high-speed signaling technology named FRED that Sharp says increases brightness and reduces crosstalk. More interesting are the AN-3DG10 glasses that come with them, which reportedly allow each individual viewer decide whether to view content in 2D or 3D — we’re guessing by tweaking the glasses to show either the left or right image to both eyes simultaneously, instead of flipping back and forth. Of course, you’ll also need something to watch, and thus Sharp will also release a pair of Blu-ray DVR units, the BD-HDW700 and BD-HDW70, which record two simultaneous Japanese television programs onto terabyte-sized hard drives when they’re not sending Blu-ray 3D content to the aforementioned displays.

While mum’s the word on pricing, Impress Watch believes the TVs will start around ¥280,000 (around $3,067) and top out at a cool ¥600,000 ($6,581) for that 60-incher, and says that US and European variants are expected later this year. While you wait, why not take a deep dive into the details — you’ll find an entire brochure’s worth at our source links.

Sharp plunges headfirst into 3D market with LV-series Quattron TVs, Blu-ray DVRs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony just posted its yearly results today, and while a ¥40.8 billion ($439 million) loss is never a good thing, it’s at least a marked improvement from last year’s staggering $1 billion drop into the red, which was the company’s first loss in 14 years. LCD TVs and cameras were Sony’s big electronics sellers, while PS3 sales went up to 13 million from 10.1 million last year — and hey, Sony’s console actually became profitable at the end of the year as production costs have gone down. Now for the bad news: PSP sales were down to 9.9m from 14.4 last year, with game sales dropping to 44.4m from 50.3m units, while PS2 hardware went down to 7.2m from 7.7m units and PS2 software fell sharply from 83.5m units to 35.7m units. That’s not completely unexpected, as the PS2 can’t last forever and the PSP is getting long in the tooth, but it means that Sony faces some serious pressure to hit its target of 15m PS3s sold this year to pick up the slack and help it hit its goal of posting a ¥50 billion ($541 million) profit next year. Let’s hope that Move controller lives up to the hype, right? Sony’s also counting on 3D to help it get there, and wonder of wonders, it also expects Sony Ericsson to hit profitability, so that X10 mini pro had better be a big improvement over the Xperia X10. We’ll see if Sir Howard can keep all these various ships going in the right direction while still keeping the rest of Sony’s diverse operations (like its profitable life insurance business) in line — it should be an interesting year.

Sony posts another huge annual loss, but PS3 sales are up originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 May 2010 17:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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