A few short years ago, Sony was pushing 3D gaming so hard, you’d have expected its veins to pop out of its head. at its previous E3 and Gamescom conferences, it made everybody in attendance don glasses to view their presentations in glorious, magical 3D – but this year, we’ve seen nothing at all from Sony regarding 3D. is it time to throw in the 3D towel?
EA’s Peter Moore certainly seems to think so. Speaking to Eurogamer, the EA Sports chief said that 3D “just doesn’t seem to be a major factor” in games right now.
“3D is certainly not in any way on our list of things we are focused upon as a company,” he said. “It’s just not a technology particularly in our world of gaming that seems to have got traction. If I was sceptical 18 months ago I remain sceptical.”
Even Nintendo, whose current handheld relies on the extra dimension as its biggest selling point, seems to think 3D is on its way out (again).
“I think when we launched the 3DS there was a kind of 3D boom, which is perhaps slightly on the wane again,” Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told The Independant. “So, now we’ve created the 3DS and 3DS XL and also have some games out there that are really using that 3D effect that we can see, from my point of view, that it’s an important element. But as human beings are this kind of surprise effect wears off quickly, and just have this 3D stereoscopic effect isn’t going to keep people excited.”
Sony, on the lack of 3D at its E3 and Gamescom events is playing down their lack of 3D, remaining publically committed to it – but probably only because they’ve been punting their 3D TV’s for so long.
“We spoke about it at E3 two years ago and everyone put their glasses on for the first time, and the next year we did the same and everyone did it again,” Sony’s Jim Ryan told CVG. “Y’know, there comes a time when you don’t need to talk about it any more.”
Microsoft, for its part, has pretty much always though 3D was a waste of time.
What do you think? Do any of you actively play games in 3D? I thought it was used quite well in Killzone 3 – and I still play most of my 3DS games with the slider on maximum – but I’m not quite sold on it as a feature.
Last Updated: August 22, 2012
