Sony Worldwide president Shuhei Yoshida said that the PlayStation 4 will be capabile of playing Stereoscopic 3D games, but the feature will not be a priority for Sony.
Yoshida, who spoke to a group of outlets in the wake of Sony's PS4 reveal last week, explained that Sony emphasized 3D on the PS3 as part of a larger consumer electronics initiative. "We made [3D] a big thing, because it was led by [the] consumer electronics side of Sony," Yoshida said. "Now the consumer electronics side of Sony, and all the companies have shifted focus from 3D TVs to something else."
Realistically, he's saying that Sony gambled on it, and they lost, but there's no reason for them to get hung up on it. As the makers of a wide range of consumer electronics, Sony has used the PlayStation to push technology in their products and vice versa, Polygon points out. Some of those initatives, like equiping the PS3 with a Blu-Ray player, work well. Other times, like saddling the PlayStation Portable with a UMD player, it falls flat.
It seems that Sony may be shifting away from that strategy, at least a little bit. At January's Consumer Electronics Show, Sony's unveiled a new set of 4K televisions. The PS4 will support 4K resolution for "personal media" like photos and video, but so far there are no plans to make games for the higher resolution.
Yoshida clarified that Sony "liked" stereoscopic 3D, and felt it should still be represented on the next PlayStation. In fact, he went on to say that PS4's extra power would make it easier to make 3D games that both look good and run smoothly: "More games will run at 1080p 60 frames, so it's [an] easier and better experience when you watch on a 3D TV."
