Finally! Some bright news to share in the 3D world. First, Batman Arkham City is officially confirmed as having stereoscopic 3D support via Nvidia GeForce 3D Vision drivers and enhanced PhysX effects. Batman Arkham Asylum was very memorable in 3D, and MTBS is hoping the follow-up is even better. While there is no official mention of this by EIDOS, Arkham Asylum ran almost equally well on DDD and iZ3D stereoscopic 3D drivers, and we are hopeful the follow-up is a repeat in history. Arkham City will be out in October.
Epic Games has confirmed that XBOX 360 exclusive Gears of War 3 will support stereoscopic 3D gaming as well. HOWEVER, while this has not been officially stated, MTBS is well aware that the key ingredient in Epic’s 3D sauce on console is the Trioviz SDK. Trioviz is a 2D+depth technology which means the game isn’t rendered with two distinct camera views, and is instead an extrapolation from one camera combined with depth buffer information. While it works, the 3D depth and flexibility are likely going to be very limited compared to a true dual camera stereoscopic 3D rendering. 2D+Depth technologies are occasionally used on console because they let game developers render stereoscopic 3D games without turning down eye candy and losing much in the way of performance.
On the Nintendo 3DS front, their only game to make it to the top 20 titles in sales last week was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. The silver lining is that the 3DS’ recent price drop helped with a 60% increase in game sales. There is clearly a relationship between content quality and console pricing, so there is some real hope with this.