3D Content: What's Out There? Page 3

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GAMING
Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are capable of outputting certain games stereoscopically. The most notable games are Gran Turismo 5 (PS3) and Call of Duty: Black Ops (both), though there are many others (and even more planned).

While playing these games in real 3D is cool, you take a significant performance penalty. Currently, top-tier games like GT5 and Black Ops are designed to use the processing in the PS3 and 360 to its fullest... in 2D mode. Adding stereoscopic decreases the video quality in GT5, and decreases the frame rate and decreases the response accuracy in CoD:BO. So it's a trade-off; decreasing quality for the added "realism" of depth. Will game makers figure out how to work around this? It's too early to say. GT4 was one of the only games that took advantage of the PlayStation 2's ability to output 1080i, and you could tell it was pushing the limit of what was possible. So even if we're stuck with the quality/3D trade off with this generation of gaming hardware, you can be sure the next generation will be able do it no problem.

For a full list, Wikipedia has an excellent page with listings for all the stereoscopic PS3 games here and all stereoscopic games here.

Bottom Line
When TV manufacturers hype how much 3D content is already available, they're not being completely disingenuous. There is a fair amount of 3D content out there, and in some ways there's more 3D than there was HD in early days of that format. With the staggeringly avaricious and asinine decision to make the only desirable 3D content exclusive to specific brands, the entire 3D "revolution" they seem to craving is undermined from the start. Genius.

Then again, this is the industry that gave us VHS/Beta, MiniDisc/DAT/DCC, DVD-A/SACD, and HD-DVD/Bluray, so no one claimed big companies were smart.

ARTICLE CONTENTS

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