Sony patents 3D multiplayer system without split-screen

This is actually a really cool idea. I mean how many times have you taken a quick look at your mate’s screen when playing multi… Oh how golden eye trained us to cheat!

I hate split screen.
I just find it harder to concentrate.
At least thats what I tell the little one when she whops me on MW2.

Awesome idea, i’m not into 3D right now. But count me in anytime when this works

Freakin’ awesome idea but it is still far away till we will see that. But it’s a great start.

It’s a pretty obvious idea. No way should it merit a patent.

@ 5. funny that the most obvious ideas patented make companies millions… So sony will gain from the others copying it later. Remember the rubble controller issue, simple idea that cost em lots.

CELL + RSX = ANY THING POSSIBLE

this is what makes sony so good,its innovation,if they pull that off it will demolish the competition.bring it on

If they can pull this off it’ll be pretty damn impressive!

that sounds pretty fukin good.
thats is easily the best thing iv heard come out of 3D so far.
real innovation
i wonder if it could be 4 player?
or maybe even more?
wonders of what the future will hold, we may all have our own pair of 3D glasses soon

wow, this is very intelligent, but i wonder if the quality will be the same coz when i play like COD in split secreen u’ll notice that the graphics will be lowered to allow ur console playin two deferent areas n sounds together at the same time..but i guess nothin is impossible with todays tech, seems like am going to save my money 4 the 3D TV instead of that silly motion controllers.

hell fucking yes please!

tricking your eyes like this will surely only cause migraines.

who needs online mulitplayer when your friends can come over and you all can play 4 player 3D offline with 12 other bots.

@G1GAHURTZ
Why? There is no 3D effect to resolve, you’re not really tricking anything, just showing and hiding. Refresh rates per player will be nice and high (60 fps – even if the game runs at 30fps). So it’s similar in some respects to watching a normal tv for example.

I could be wrong, but the way that I understand it, this idea involves forcing your eyes to see alternate frames on the screen.

So 3D works by doing the same thing per eye. i.e. Left eye is ‘covered’ while right eye sees, the right eye is ‘covered’ while left eye sees, etc.

I’m pretty sure it’s this high speed flickering that makes your eyes have to work really hard to ‘figure out’ what’s going on that causes some (many) people headaches, nausea, etc.

The above idea seems to use a similar mechanic, except it ‘flickers’ the image to both eyes at the same time, rather than to each one alternately.

So basically, it looks like the same migraine inducing technology that we were recently warned not to play for more than a couple of hours without taking a break.

In this case each eye is seeing exactly the same thing though, there is no forced 3d recognition. There may be some affected by headaches, but it should be less than 3D.

@16 Ya know, technically speaking, depending on what kind of tv you have, that image is already flickering a whole bunch of times every second. If you have one of those fancy new LED/LCD tvs with a 240 hz refresh rate, the image is appearing and disappearing on the screen 240 times a second. I don’t see that being much different that glasses flickering in sync with the already flickering tv. And just so we’re clear, all tvs flicker, just at different rates. Maybe its 60 times a second, or a 120, or maybe 600 or maybe even 96 if you’re watching a blu-ray that’s running at 24 frames per second and your blu-ray player can output 1080p/24 and your tv can properly make use of the signal.

@18:

TV/monitor refresh rate, video game/Blu-Ray refresh rate and PAL/NTSC refresh rates are all very different things to current 3D alternate frame sequencing technology.

When you look at a monitor/TV, you get an uninterupted stream of the same image being refreshed over and over again. On modern products, such as LCD monitors/LED TV’s the backlight runs at about 200Hz, which means that you don’t get much of a flickering effect, if any.

On older products, such as CRT monitors, the entire screen gets refreshed over and over again at a rate of anywhere between 60-100Hz. this is still not the same sort of flickering as alternate frame sequencing, but it can still have an effect on your eyes. I for one, can instantly tell if a CRT monitor is running at anything less than 72Hz@1024×768, because the instant that I look at one, the back of my eyes begin to hurt.

Anyway, with alternate frame sequencing, the flickering is different to what you’re talking about. What it does is actually stop your eye(s) from seeing, when they’re expecting a smooth ‘signal’ to send to your brain.

Imagine there was a digital frame with two pictures alternating every second (and no backlight). One of Pat, and one of Steph, for example… Now imagine that you’re standing in a room with no windows where someone is turning the light on and off every other second so that you can only see the image of Pat. Your eyes have to adjust to the changes in light every time the switch goes on and off. Your pupils will be dilating and constricting constantly.

Now imagine that they have to try and adjust to a black signal and a full 1080p image 60 times every single second.

This clearly has an effect on our eyes, which is why it’s recommended for children under six to not play any 3D games whatsoever. Because it can potentially cause problems with their eyesight.

Looking at a smooth image being refreshed on a monitor/TV is not the same thing.

True, but you have to concede that this is also not the same as 3D though, because there isn’t the resolution of the 3D effect.

Yes. This isn’t the same as regular 3D.

Just likes sonys faith in the cell and rsx are going to pay off in the long run, no other current gen console could even come close to being able to do this.

@22

Actually this is almost exactly the same as stereoscopic 3D, which both HD consoles already do.

The only difference is that player1/player2 get alternate frames instead of eye1/eye2.

This is why i love the playstation. inovation in hardware/s, inovation in graphics, inovation in genres and game design breaking away from the norm. You look at wii, some inovation. Look at xbox, none what so ever! the best they come up with is kinect and it will fail. im sorry but using it as a invisble remote to change channels or move around has nothing to do with gaming. It’s a gimmick and those who disagree are stupid.