Standards Needed for Stereoscopic 3-D Gaming, Developers Tell Conference

“There’s definitely issues” today with console stereoscopic 3-D gaming, in particular, Oliver said. While stereoscopic 3-D can be achieved with 2-D PC games via special driver software from companies including DDD, iZ3D and Nvidia, the only way to achieve the effect with console games is via native support, when a title is designed to be 3-D from the start, he said.

But Blitz was able to create what it touts as the world’s first true digital console stereoscopic 3-D game, the recently launched kung fu arcade title Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao. It’s available as a download only for the PS3 via the PlayStation Network and the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. The game “works on all different 3-D screens,” Oliver said. Players, however, must select, via the game’s on-screen options, the type of display they're using to best achieve the 3-D effect. The options include DLP TVs, horizontal interlacing, vertical interlacing, side-by-side 3- D for projection systems and a “top and bottom” process.

Adding a potential layer of complexity to stereoscopic 3-D on the PS3 is the current effort to achieve a Blu-ray 3-D standard. Blitz sidestepped the issue for now by releasing Invincible Tiger only as a download.

But Oliver told Consumer Electronics Daily he had no concern about the ability of PS3s to handle stereoscopic 3-D once a Blu-ray 3-D standard is finalized. Oliver believes “only a firmware update” will be needed, he said. Sony Computer Entertainment has been mum on the issue and didn’t respond by our deadline to a request for comment. But Benn Carr, Walt Disney Studios vice president of technology and chairman of a Blu-ray Disc Association 3-D task force that submitted recommended specs and guidelines that the BDA board unanimously approved, told a news conference at Berlin’s IFA show that it’s “not inconceivable” in the BDA’s 3-D spec that an existing Blu-ray player, even a PS3, can be upgraded through firmware updates to play new 3-D Blu-ray movies (CED Sept 4 p2). “It’s really up to the individual companies that make the products whether they can be upgraded,” Carr said.

The lack of a stereoscopic 3-D standard for games could result in more product returns, Oliver said, also expressing concern that too many bad 3-D games could “damage the market before it” even starts. Not every game should be in 3-D, he said, and he’s “worried about forcing it in there as a gimmick” only. This could result in “a backlash” by consumers, he said.

Ubisoft thinks “we're a few years out” until stereoscopic 3-D “becomes mainstream,” Naud said. There’s only a “very, very small market for 3-D TVs” today, he said. It will grow, but he predicted it will remain a small part of the market. However, he called stereoscopic 3-D a “natural move” for gaming and “the next evolution” for the industry,” saying “anyone that sees it gets it.” Ubisoft is planning to release Avatar: The Game, based on James Cameron’s coming 3- D movie Avatar, in November. Ubisoft didn’t see developing the game a risk because it was convinced the movie’s world would “work” as a 3-D game, Naud said. The game maker “didn’t know squat about 3-D two years ago,” before it started work on Avatar, he said.

What could help boost consumer interest in stereoscopic 3-D gaming is more displays at retail stores, where they can see the technology hands on, said Habib Zargarpour, senior art director at Electronic Arts. Some consumers who have yet to buy an HDTV might opt to hold off on buying one until they can get a 3-D HDTV set, he said.

3D Entertainment Summit Notebook …

It will be “a number of years” before 3-D achieves a large penetration among households, but the home 3-D market will start to become a “very robust and very valuable” market in 2010 as the 3-D push by CE manufacturers starts to “pick up serious momentum,” DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said at the Summit Thursday. It should help spur 3-D interest among consumers that it’s “something that will start at a mass market price” because the “incremental cost” of adding 3-D to TVs is “fairly small,” at about $100-$150, he said. The home 3-D market also won’t compete with the theatrical 3-D market, he said. Katzenberg predicted the “early adopters” of home 3-D products will be largely sports and videogame enthusiasts. He also predicted ESPN will be among the first cable networks to offer 3-D content, given the leadership role that parent Disney has played in theatrical 3-D. The 3-D market overall is “full of opportunity,” he said, saying “there is nothing” superior to 3-D that has come along “creatively, as a film making tool, or as a consumer experience.” Earlier, he said “we're watching margins deteriorate all over the place” in the entertainment industry, “with the exception” of 3-D. DreamWorks Animation already pledged to make every one of its movies in 3-D starting this year. Katzenberg called 3-D “a blockbuster opportunity for the business,” and said it was “inexplicable” why all the major Hollywood studios aren’t making more 3-D movies, especially given the large consumer demand for them theatrically.

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DisplaySearch predicts worldwide 3-D TV shipments will grow from only about 156,000 in 2010, to 2.12 million in 2011, then soar to 6.21 million in 2012 and to 11.65 million in 2013, said Paul Gagnon, the research company’s director of North American TV Research. But he stressed that it was just a preliminary figure, and said he expected some industry observers to view the projections as too conservative and others not conservative enough. The bulk of the market will be in 40 inches and above, he predicted. More plasma TV 3-D sets are expected to ship in 2010 than LCD TV models -- 89,000 versus 37,000, he said. But that’s expected to change significantly in 2012, when LCD TV 3-D shipments are expected to total 3.46 million versus plasma’s 2.75 million, he said. LCD’s advantage is expected to widen even further in 2013, increasing to 7.23 million LCD 3-D TVs versus 4.38 million plasma models, he said.

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Converting old 2-D movies to 3-D represents an opportunity for content providers, executives from 3-D companies told the Summit. There are a large number of consumers who will be willing to see a movie again if it’s now in 3-D, said Legend Films CEO David Martin. Blu-ray isn’t enough for some consumers to buy a movie, but HD plus 3-D could be, he said. And it’s “not that expensive” to convert 2-D movies to 3-D, he said. The growth of products that support stereoscopic 3-D content will increase demand for 3-D, but Eric Edmeades, CEO of The Kerner Group, said he expects there to be demand for only certain 2-D movies that are converted to 3-D.