No 1080p 3D PS3 Gaming Confirms Sony

Sony has confirmed that 3D gaming on the PS3 will be limited to 720p HD, rather than full 1080p HD, by virtue of the nature of the 3D system the company is using.  Speaking at the Develop conference, Sony's Simon Benson said that while 1080p 3D movies would play on the PS3, the need for high framerates – in the region of 60fps – for 3D gaming meant that resolution would have to suffer if gameplay wasn't to be jerky.

Of course, we'd expected something along these lines for some time now, after Sony discussed their 3D systems back in April.  Then, they explained how they had retrofitted previous 2D games for 3D use, by either halving the 1080p HD quality – in the case of Wipeout, going roughly from 2D 1080p 60fps to 3D 720p 30fps – or by artificially adding in fake depth information as is done in some 3D films.

While those alternative methods that preserve 1080p HD resolution are possible, by making 720p HD a standard in their official guidelines Sony has basically shut the door on higher resolution 3D gaming, at least for the moment.  Still, according to Benson "even trained computer graphics artists" were practically unable to tell the difference.

[via Joystiq]