3D ‘Here To Stay,’ Says Sony Computer Entertainment’s Hocking

3D has become popular several times over the past several decades, but its has “waned each time,” Hocking said. However, “this time it’s going to be different because really this is the first time we've had high-quality displays and high-quality content at an affordable price for the home” at the same time, he said. The technology also now has the strong backing from film studios, broadcasters and CE manufacturers, who have all made a heavy investment, he said.

"The most important” challenge now is for content providers to make sure they “deliver a very high-quality experience to the viewer,” as the movie Avatar did, Hocking said. Avatar “did an amazing job of delivering the very highest quality 3D film experience and it got an enormous audience excited about 3D,” he said. But he said “there’s been some films which perhaps have had the opposite effect in some cases, where the 3D has been done very badly.” That was the case in the past with movies that used anaglyph 3D technology, and it’s even been the case since Avatar with certain movies released in 3D using the superior active shutter and passive 3D technologies, he said. Hocking declined to single any films out for using 3D poorly. “People don’t really understand how fantastic 3D can be when it’s done right” yet, he said. Also, 3D effects achieved via a movie’s post production are “never going to produce as good an effect” as 3D created while a film is being shot, he said.

Many filmmakers don’t yet understand that with 3D “you can’t use the same transition techniques, you can’t use the same camera techniques” as with 2D, Hocking said. Cinematographers, editors and directors all need to get up to speed on how to use 3D because “it’s a whole new language of the screen that needs to be learned,” he said. “The same is true of broadcast and sports coverage” in 3D, he said, calling what’s been seen so far “a mixed bag” in terms of quality. He predicted that the situation will rapidly improve now that filmmakers including Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese are “actively involved in producing 3D films.” He predicted, “We're going to see a raft of really high-quality 3D coming over the next 12 to 24 months."

"The challenge for game developers … is to get them to understand the medium -- it’s not just about adding depth to games,” Hocking said. “This is very much about delivering a new immersive experience,” he said. Developers still need to get up to speed on how to use 3D effectively in a game and “provide a very nice, comfortable experience,” without causing eye fatigue, he said. “We're working” hard with first- and third-party developers “to get them to understand the medium,” he said. “That’s the main focus for us at the moment. It’s an education process for developers,” he said.

Hocking said he wasn’t familiar with the Avatar game from Ubisoft based on the movie, which initially saw disappointing sales. But he said, “We've only had 3D displays really out there” on the market “for about eight weeks … so we're at the very, very early stage of the adoption of 3D home entertainment.” It remains important to get consumers to see just how good 3D games on the new TVs look because “seeing is believing,” he said.

The need to wear 3D glasses to play 3D games likely won’t be a major challenge because consumers seem to have no problem wearing glasses to watch 3D movies or take part in theme park attractions, Hocking said. In any case, “at the moment, there are no good ways to have glasses-free 3D on large screens,” he said.

But Hocking conceded that the initial high cost of active shutter glasses is “a limitation at the moment, I guess.” Most 3D TVs only come with one or two pairs. “At the moment there’s not really any way around that,” he said. A further issue is that not every pair of active shutter glasses will work on every TV that uses active shutter technology. That’s because the HDMI standard for 3D didn’t include a standard for the glasses, Hocking said. “In the future, yes, it could be better” if there was just one standard and glasses could be used on any TV, he said.

Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony’s Networked Products and Services group, said at E3 last month there will be 20 stereoscopic 3D games available for the PS3 by the end of March (CED June 16 p1). They will include Sony’s Killzone 3, shipping in February, that also makes use of Sony’s new PlayStation Move motion control system. Video footage from Killzone 3 in 3D was shown at Sony’s E3 news conference. Other Sony 3D games to be offered for the PS3 include racing title Gran Turismo 3 and the latest MLB baseball game. Also available in 3D will be the third-party titles Crysis 2 from Electronic Arts, a Mortal Kombat title from Warner, NBA 2K11 from Take-Two Interactive, Tron Evolution from Disney and Shaun White Skateboarding and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier from Ubisoft. Several will also support PlayStation Move.

Already out for the PS3 are three first-party stereoscopic 3D games, Hocking said: Pain, Super Stardust HD and WipEout HD, along with one level of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. Three PlayStation Move titles that will feature 3D this year are EyePet Move, The Fight: Lights Out and Tumble, he said. “What’s really special” about the Move titles is “that not only are they in stereoscopic 3D, but we're also combining 3D spatial control in front of the TV with the Move control” system; it'll be “a really, really compelling experience … moving your body in 3D but also perceiving depth and using the 3D” images seen in the game “to help you control the character,” he said. While all the current 3D PS3 games are published by Sony, “there’s a number of third-party titles coming as well” and “as the year goes on there'll be a lot more announcements about 3D games because every time we present we get developers coming up to us” asking how they can add the technology to their titles, he said. He said about 10 independent developers approached him after a presentation he gave at the Develop in Brighton conference in the U.K. on Thursday, asking how they can add 3D to their games.

The extra cost involved in making a game 3D varies based on the type of game, Hocking said. But he told us, “We've looked at a lot of titles” in 2D to convert them to 3D and “none of them have been very difficult so far” to convert. Games with a lot of cut scenes from movies or other sources require some extra work for conversion to 3D if they're in 2D, he said.

More than 35 million PS3 consoles are now capable of handling stereoscopic 3D and are compatible with the 3D TVs that recently started shipping as a result of last month’s firmware update, Hirai said. But Hocking said Thursday that the PS3 firmware update only added the capability for PS3s to play stereoscopic 3D games over HDMI -- not the ability to play Blu-ray stereoscopic 3D movies, which will come via another firmware update later this year.