Hands on With Sony’s PlayStation 3D Display

Sony hopes to bring 3D to the masses with a low-cost PlayStation-branded television it announced at E3 in Los Angeles.

At 24-inches, the 1080p display is aimed at dorm rooms, bedrooms and family dens, but would be too small for large living rooms.

To see a video with the display, watch a video on YouTube.

The big benefit for gamers over other 3D displays is that Sony’s shows different full-screen images to different players.

“Ordinarily when you’re playing two-player mode you use split screen,” said Sony hardware product manager Patrick Chen. “With the new technology in this display you can get full HD per person while you’re wearing the glasses.”

The display did work as advertised. Without the glasses it looked as if two screens were placed on top of each other. A switch on the top of the glasses toggles between first and second player images. Sony wouldn’t say how it worked, but it likely has to do with the active shutter glasses.

The television can display 3D movies, which are playable on any PlayStation 3. It also has additional HD inputs, including two HDMI inputs and one component input.

The screen did look a little dim, but Chen said that’s typical of 3D displays, and it wasn’t helped by the bright show floor lights.

The PlayStation 3D display bundle comes with the television, an HDMI cord, Resistance 3 and one set of active shutter glasses for US$500. It will be available in the third quarter of this year.

Nick Barber covers general technology news in both text and video for IDG News Service. E-mail him at Nick_Barber@idg.com and follow him on Twitter at @nickjb.