Sony on the limitations of glasses-free 3D

The hunger for glasses-free 3D screen technology is misjudged, Sony’s 3D gaming boss Mick Hocking has claimed.

"There are already glasses-free TVs, big screens and small screens out there," he told Eurogamer. "The problem with glasses-free, or auto-stereoscopic as it’s called, is that it has inherent limitations.

"With stereoscopic 3D, however you do it, you’ve got to get one image to the left eye and one image to the right eye to produce the stereoscopic effect. So with all these screens they typically have a sweet spot for where you need to put your head in distance and in angle, and if you move your head relative to it, you break the 3D effect until you get into the next pair of images, and you see artefacts going across the screen.”

Hocking went on to criticise some of the current glasses-free 3D already on the market, though he stopped short of actually naming the 3DS.

"We’ve also seen with mobile devices, if it’s a mobile device you move relative to your head and it’s got a 3D screen, that will break the 3D effect. It won’t work very well,” he added.

"There’s lots and lots of work going on with auto-stereoscopic screens because people wearing glasses is something extra for them to do to enjoy the content. We’ve been saying over the last 12 months, if the content is good enough and compelling enough, the only way at the moment to enjoy full high definition 3D is on TVs with the glasses."