Everyone knows the Playstation 3 has one key thing over the Wii and the Xbox 360: A Blu-ray player.
But according to a recent report, the PS3 will soon have one more thing above the others: native stereoscopic 3D gaming. It’s a development that’s not terribly surprising, but it’s interesting enough (and potentially lucrative) that its competitors are sure to be watching.
According to Neil Schneider, the CEO of 3D tech purveyor MTBS, Sony will begin supporting their Blitz Tech 3D engine on the console in 2009. Expected to be a downloadable firmware update, the tech will allow players to upgrade their console to stereoscopic 3D visuals and inexorably, to Blu-ray content on 3D.
Andrew Oliver of Blitz Games Studios says that 3D capability through the BIOS firmware is likely unique to Sony PS3 and will give them a competitive advantage in this area.
A stereoscopic 3D update in the box will presumably enhance the visual depth perception that allows 2D images to pop out of the screen. But the question will be placed precisely on the quality of the perspective deviation of the games, which is what makes good 3D, well, good. Otherwise, the screen might get all fuzzy.
Another question is the variability of the TV displays used when playing the 3D-enhanced games. Some sets already have their own 3D secret sauce — the new Mitsubishi Laser TV, for example, uses a 3D IR emitter along with a ‘checkerboard display’
format, where the ‘checkerboard’ is a type of complicated geometry calibration to display 3D images.
The PS3 3D firmware update will likely be able to fit all of these calibrations, but we don’t know for sure whether it will look better or worse in some TVs.
Already, you should be able to play games regardless of the system in several new, 3D-enabled TVs like the Mitsu, and Samsung’s PN42A450P Flat Panel HDTV. However, this option has received little buzz as most of the games aren’t set-up to take advantage of the tech.
The bigger question as always, is the quality of the content, and the PS3, with or without 3D, is still running behind.
At the system’s inception, the Blu-ray presence promised superior graphics and a larger capacity for extra content, like smoother animations and epically long stories. But unfortunately for Sony, it took way more time that the Wii or XBox 360 to come up with appropriate, fun games that lived up to the hardware.
With a cool new firmware app in tow, it’s up to Sony’s game developers to come up with good games and take advantage of the 3D, which has grown exponentially as an accepted technology in the last few years. If they pull it off, the Playstation might have one more thing up its sleeve before the final score has been tallied in the seventh generation of gaming systems.
Photos: Screenshot of Fallout 3, Mitsubishi 3D test/HDTVExpert
LG Electronics said Tuesday that its 2009 lineup of networked Blu-ray players will include video streaming features from CinemaNow and YouTube, as well as with its existing content partner, Netflix.
