Sony got plenty of whoops and cheers from an audience of gamers when it unveiled its PlayStation 3D Display at the annual E3 convention in June.
It sounded so cool. Here was a custom 3D monitor built for gamers at under $500 (£410), with a pair of the necessary glasses thrown in.
The hottest new feature was SimulView. This used the double images of 3D to show one image of a game to one player and another perspective to a second player. It meant Sony could do away with the squashing of the player’s viewpoint in the customary split-screen fashion, where two gamers are playing and are shown their different views of a battlefield or racetrack.
I was eager to try this and my 13-year-old son was even keener, but after testing a review unit this week, we were left frustrated and disappointed.
The display itself is not that impressive. It is only 24in in size and attaches to a stand that shudders with the slightest vibration. Sony says gamers like to press up to the screen, so a larger size is not needed, but it still seemed too small to us.
The controls are buttons on the back of the unit, so you have to feel your way to use them as you look at the menu settings on screen. No remote is supplied, but the accessory can be bought for $25.
Sony emphasises that this is more monitor than TV, but it does expect people to connect cable and satellite boxes to it through the HDMI and component video inputs on the rear.
We were used to being able to play games with real or simulated 3D on a larger screen and put in a Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 3 disc on the connected PS3 to try the SimulView feature.
We couldn’t get it to work and then noticed in the small print of the instruction leaflet that SimulView only works with games that support the technology.
Sony tells me MotorStorm Apocalypse, Killzone 3, Gran Turismo 5 and Super Stardust HD are the only games that can currently support SimulView, although other titles should follow. However, don’t expect to be able to plug your Xbox 360 into the display and ever get the feature – it is a PS3 exclusive.
MotorStorm is included with the display, which is something of a bonus, although this is more than offset by the extra $70 you need to pay for a second pair of 3D glasses.
And yet, we were unable to get SimulView to work properly with Motorstorm after numerous attempts.
Part of the problem is that there are no instructions with the display or the game on how to switch to SimulView, but even following more detailed step-by-step instructions in a media reviewers’ guide, we still had no luck.
I am not saying the feature does not work, but finding the right combination of setting up the 3D glasses, the console, the display and the settings of the game itself exhausted our patience and we only caught brief glimpses of the two different views available..
We had no problems playing a single-player 3D game, but even here, the 3D glasses are some of the least comfortable I have tried and the picture is noticeably darker in this mode. The sound from the display’s speakers and subwoofer is also weak.
Some gamers may still view this Sony product as good value for what it enables – it can be a gaming screen, computer monitor and TV, comes with glasses, a game and an HDMI cable and it is currently $100 off on Amazon.com.
Buyers there are giving it four stars on average in their initial reviews, but we would award two at most for this below-par product.
