Michael Ephraim, Sony Computer Entertainment Australia’s managing director, believes that 3D is far from over, and that the technology still has a way to go.
“It’s just that we expected it to take off much faster than what happened,” he explained. “The thinking was that everything was going to be 3D, but there is content more suited to 3D than others. You don’t want to see a romance in 3D as much as you want to see an action or sports event in 3D.” He said that the tech is still likely to become huge, adding: “I think it was Bill Gates who said technology doesn’t happen as fast as we think, but when it does happen, it happens bigger than we think. I think that’s very applicable to 3D.”
The recent decline in demand for 3D movies, as well as the poor overall performance of the 3DS, may leave some in doubt of Ephraim’s words, but he believes that Nintendo’s handheld was not offering a true 3D experience. ”3D is a stereoscopic experience where you expect the character to jump out of the screen and fly by your ears,” he said in a feature on Screenplay. “3DS did not offer that.
“It wasn’t stereoscopic 3D, which you can only achieve through glasses…You could argue that maybe all the games haven’t come out for it, but personally, I don’t think somebody wants a watered-down 3D experience after they have watched television and movies where bullets are flying around their ears. You don’t get that experience [with 3DS].”
The PS Vita doesn’t utilise 3D, but it’s also a more powerful machine: ARM said it could have the power of a PC, theoretically.
Sony has stated that it wouldn’t incorporate 3D into a handheld, such as the Vita, until the tech was definitely ready.