At a recent 3D marketing event for Sony, Simon Benson, senior development manager for Sony’s Worldwide Studios stereoscopic team, has stated that 3D represents a more enriching experience for novice and core gamers alike. Those gamers that choose to pursue 3D TVs will have a distinct advantage over gamers with regular 2D TVs.
The advantage though “depends on the gamers to be honest,” he said. “Initially we were slightly concerned about this because we were thinking, what if it makes it twice as easy or something like that."
Benson also touched on 3D and how the immersive interface will ease gamers into a new style of playing. “We haven’t quantified that to that level of degree at the moment. What we do find is that it depends. It depends on the nature of the game and what you’re actually getting. We think it’s pretty much in a similar domain to when someone has got an HD TV and someone else has got an SD TV. The person with the HD TV may have an advantage if the game requires them to perceive a lot of fine detail in the distance or something. It depends on the game and it depends on what you’re trying to do with the core game mechanics as to whether you get an advantage.”
“One interesting thing that we have found is that it tends to make the games more accessible in a lot of cases,” he added. “If you’re playing a racing game and you’re getting some additional [3D] information you can actually measure distances with your eyes, making it easier to judge breaking. Many of our hardcore gamers are already pretty good at that anyway, so how much of an edge is it going to give them compared to someone who’s only just tried a game for the first time? We often see that if you give the controller to someone for the first time they might crash a lot until they get used to the fact that they’ve got to use other cues to perceive distances and breaking and stuff like that, but suddenly you can give a controller to someone to play a stereoscopic driving game and even if they’ve not played it before the cues are more relevant to them because they’re used to measuring things with their eyes and they really do feel like it’s more familiar to them."
3D gaming is assuredly a major focus for the console manufacturers, as the PS3 is vying for the top spot with earlier 3D releases and more support towards a core audience. “I think what’s basically going to happen is that anyone who has stereoscopic 3D televisions and, for example, is playing a driving game, I would imagine you’re likely to find that the accessibility level is higher, that people would generally perform better on their first go. But I think at the high end with the hardcore gamers you’ll still see a [3D] advantage there, potentially, but the margins will be far smaller," Benson continued. "Again, we don’t really know and it’s something we want to quantify and be a lot clearer on. It’s certainly one thing we are conscious of, and as part of our platform validation cycle we do check these things. We did tests on Wipeout’s online racing modes to make sure that it wasn’t hugely different… It’s not like you’re twice as fast or anything.”
[Thanks Edge]
2 Comments
July 15, 2010
Sony must think the whole world just plays driving games. O_o
These are the thoughts of people that do not play games at all making assumptions about those of us that do and how we play those games. It is really sad these are the people trying to shape the future of gaming when in reality all they want to do is they can sell more junk beyond just the game, machine and monitor. Now we can all buy all brand new stuff to play the same driving games we have loved and enjoyed for years.
Unless their 3D jumps off the screen and makes it a new world it will be just like every movie after Avatar that was 3D and people where like "why is that 3D?" and "boy that 3D was not so good was it."
July 15, 2010
@pawwof--Agreed. Sony is still trying to boost their corporate message of selling everything in 3D, so this part(3D games more accessible to all gamers) is their PR spin to get more gamers interesting in buying 3D games, which are in turn suppose to lead to more sales of 3D tvs and glasses.