Sony clearly believes that 3D support for TV in the home is going to be a "big thing" in the near future. Its Playstation 3 console supports true stereoscopic 3D (Microsoft could perhaps do the same for the Xbox 360 but doesn"t appear interested in putting this feature in) and a number of current and upcoming PS3 games support 3D. Now Sony is trying to get college students and families to get on board the 3D bandwagon with a couple of new products and a new feature.
At Sony"s pre-E3 2011 press conference on Monday we got to check out the newly revealed Playstation Monitor. It"s a fully 3D supported monitor that can also be a solid 24 inch flat screen TV. That"s the perfect size for apartments, college dorm rooms, bedrooms and other locations. The Playstation Monitor has 2 HDMI ports, a component video port, a speaker system with subwoofer and full 1080p resolution support.
The design of the monitor is nothing spectacular but it doesn"t really need to be. It"s small, compact but has features that larger TV that cost more don"t have. Sony will include an HDMI cable (a nice touch) a pair of 3D glasses and a free copy of the upcoming shooter Resistance 3 with the Monitor for a cool price of $499. In addition to the new monitor, Sony will sell pairs of wireless 3D glasses for about $70 each later this fall. Oddly enough Nvidia announced just a few days ago that it will release a wired stereoscopic 3D glasses set up for PCs for $99 later this month. We think it"s cool Sony will basically undercut Nvidia and keep its 3D glasses wireless.
The very cool feature that will make gamers happy is that Sony has found a way to use stereoscopic 3D in a new way. In a split screen game two gamers can put on the stereoscopic 3D glasses, One gamer can see his side in full screen with the glasses while his buddy can see his side on the full screen while wearing the second pair of 3D glasses. No more annoying two viewpoints on one screen with this set-up. We tried this out at the press conference and it works really well.
The Playstation Monitor is such a cool bundle for a reasonable price that we might even consider buying one ourselves. After all the Monitor can also show Blu-Ray 3D movies with the PS3 and other 3D enabled TV shows and movies. But it will be the PS3 3D games that will likely keep us using the Monitor. It"s due for release this fall.
Image via Sony
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