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Sony 3D Display could revolutionize 2D gaming

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Sony has long been saying it’s betting the future of gaming and home entertainment is in 3D, and at this year’s E3 the company is making good on its word with the announcement of a new 24-inch 3D Display. Due to land in virtually worldwide in time for the end-of-year holiday buying season, the 24-inch Display will not only handle traditional 3D movies and gaming content from Sony’s PlayStation 3, it will also be able to show unique, full-screen images to two players at the same time, expanding competitive and cooperative game play possibilities for PlayStation titles.

Sony PlayStation 3D Display
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The display itself is a unique 24 inches in size, which Sony touts as being perfect for bedrooms, dorms, and other small spaces where typical 3DTV are way too large. The display offers full HD resolution—1,920 by 1,080 pixels—along with a 176° viewing angle, 4ms response time, and a 5,000:1 contrast ratio. Users will connect the display to their PS3s via HDMI (there’s a second HDMI input for connecting another device), and the display has built-in stereo speakers plus a subwoofer that might be enough to bring games to life in small spaces. There’s a component input if folks want to hook up old-school video sources, along with a headphone jack and a 3.5mm stereo minijack for hooking up media players or other audio sources. The display will support several 3D formats, including “top and bottom,” “side by side,” and “frame packing” so users will be able to enjoy a wide variety of 3D content.

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However, the 3D Display’s flagship feature is undoubtedly its ability to push unique full-screen images to two gamers at the same time, enabled in part by the display’s quad-speed frame sequential display technology. The trick is enabled by the unique proprietary 3D glasses Sony has designed for the display, along with software especially designed to support the feature. Essentially, the technology transforms a 3D TV’s ability to send separate images to a viewer’s left and right eye to instead send separate images to different players: the images are 2D, but they’re full-screen, full-speed, and full-resolution, meaning two gamers can (in co-op or competitive mode) be interacting with two entirely different scenes while playing the same game.

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The Sony 3D Display will go on sale “this fall” for a suggested retail price of $499.99. That price includes a pair of the proprietary 3D glasses and a copy of Resistance 3 with full support for the display’s dual player capabilities. Additional pairs of the 3D glasses will be available for $69.99; the glasses sport a rechargeable lithium ion battery; Sony says a three-minute charge will give about three hours of use, while a 45-minute charge will let the glasses run for about 30 hours.

The question for Sony now is how many developers it can get to support the 3D Display’s technology—if the display winds up being useful in only a small handful of games, it essentially just becomes a small form-factor 3DTV. But if game developers embrace the technology, it could become the PlayStation 3’s next must-have accessory, right alongside the PlayStation Move. And at $499.99, Sony might just have found a way to bring 3D to the masses whether developers embrace the display’s special features or not.

Geoff Duncan
Geoff Duncan
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Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
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Summer Game Fest returns just before E3 2023 next June
The official artwork confirming Summer Game Fest's return on June 8, 2023.

Geoff Keighley has confirmed when Summer Game Fest will return in June 2023. It will begin with a live kickoff show on June 8, 2023, placing Keighley's game announcement alternative less than a week before E3's grand (intended) 2023 return.
Unlike past years, Summer Game Fest Live Kickoff 2023 will feature a live audience, like Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards. It will take place in the YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park, with tickets going on sale in early 2023. It will still be livestreamed across platforms like YouTube and Twitch, though. It's currently unknown who's participating, how long Summer Game Fest will run afterward, or if it will feature a Summer Game Fest Play Days-like element for fans. Still, Keighley says all of that info will be revealed ahead of the event next year, teasing what people can expect. 
"In keeping with tradition, we'll have tons of exciting announcements from the developers that are pushing the games industry forward, and will once again highlight other publisher digital events, demos, and more surprises to be announced in the coming months," Keighley says in a press release. 
That June 8 start date, and the other Summer Game Fest events likely to follow, put Keighley's show just ahead of E3 2023. The ESA and ReedPop plan to bring E3 back between June 13 and June 16, 2023. With five days of lead time on E3, Summer Game Fest can coexist with the long-running gaming conference and encompass the plethora of publisher showcases that tend to precede E3.
Geoff Keighley made it clear that he wants Summer Game Fest and E3 to coexist for a while. "We've had extensive conversations with ReedPop about E3," he said in an interview with Epic Games Store. "I think it'll kind of fit together and flow kind of from what we're doing into what they're doing and stuff. E3, to me, is this kind of master brand that represents gaming news in June."
With the start date of Summer Game Fest confirmed, the coexistence of these two summer gaming events is a reality. Summer Game Fest returns on June 8, 2023.

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Wolfenstein 3D and more classic Bethesda games join PC Game Pass
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Bethesda has announced that it added six titles to the PC Game Pass service today, most of which are from the 1990s or early 2000s. However, there is no word about them being included on Xbox Game Pass for console or cloud.

The six new games include Wolfenstein 3D, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Quake 4, Quake Champions, An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire, and The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard.

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With E3 2022 canceled, these are the summer gaming events to watch
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We learned this week that 2022 will be the second year since 1995 to not have any kind of E3 expo. While the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) says E3's physical and digital cancelation this year enables it to "devote all our energy and resources to delivering a revitalized physical and digital E3 experience next summer," it also raises questions regarding how game announcements will happen this summer. Companies like Microsoft and Nintendo often tie big reveals to E3, so what is the industry's plan now that E3 2022 is officially canceled?
So far, we only know of a couple of events that will take place, though there's still time for a lot more to be announced. For those wondering how E3 2022's cancelation will impact summer 2022's game reveal landscape, we've broken down everything that is and isn't happening -- and that might happen -- in the coming months. 
What's not happening
E3's absence leaves a crater in the usual gaming hype cycle. Typically, the yearly event took place for a week in Los Angeles and served as a spot where game publishers could announce and advertise their upcoming slates of titles and game-related products. In 2020, the ESA canceled the event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it returned digitally in 2021 with mixed results. 

On March 31, the event organizers at the ESA confirmed that there would be no digital or physical E3 event this year. That was quite surprising as more and more in-person events are returning, and the ESA even demonstrated that it could hold the event digitally before. The event may return in 2023, but this year the E3 event that typically consolidates many gaming announcements to one week in June won't play out like normal.
Outside of E3, we also know that EA won't hold its yearly EA Play Live event this summer. Typically, the publisher has its own events outside of E3, but chose not to this year because "this year things aren't lining up to show you everything on one date." That means that if we get new information on titles like the Dead Space remake or the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect, it won't be at an E3-adjacent event. 
What is happening
There are still some major gaming events that will take place this summer. This June, the biggest one is Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest. The creator of The Game Awards plans to hold a Summer Game Fest Kickoff Livestream full of new trailers and announcements. Last year's event featured the release date of Elden Ring, so there are certainly high expectations surrounding the showcase, especially as E3 won't be drawing away any reveals. An indie-focused Day of the Devs presentation and other Summer Game Fest-branded events are also expected to take place this June. Keighley tweeted that Summer Game Fest festivities "will be less than one month this year." 
IGN confirmed that its Summer of Gaming event would also take place in June and feature exclusive trailers, gameplay, and interviews. Bethesda has also teased that it will show Starfield this summer, and we're supposed to get another look at Final Fantasy XVI soon.
As for in-person events, a couple of them are happening later in the summer. Gamescom, a European gaming expo equivalent to E3, will happen in person in Cologne, Germany. In Japan, the Tokyo Game Show will be the final big in-person summer event between September 15 and 18. While E3 might not be happening, it's clear that some digital showcases will happen this summer and that events outside of America are still on track to take place in person. 

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