Sony Developing Over 20 3D Games And Over 50 3D Games In Total To Hit PS3 Soon!

You may not have heard Mick Hocking's name before, but consider yourself informed! SCEE Director Mick Hocking has some very key words to say about Sony and their cutting edge 3D involvement in advance of DEVELOP taking place in Liverpool.

Hocking says they have over 20 S3D games under development within Sony itself and a huge 50+ titles in total, including external 3D gaming developers.

We'll have those title names and more in the coming weeks and months! While Microsoft continues to practically ignore the marketing of anything 3D for their XBOX, Sony is taking the worldwide reigns for console gaming...

Stay tuned for more developments once the DEVELOP conference ends and of course the upcoming SPIKE 2010 Video Game Awards on December 11. Looks like there will be at least 10 world premiere gaming announcements made during the awards via trailers. Exciting times in stereoscopic 3D gaming!! Thanks Adam for the heads up!

Source: Develop

CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS Sets New 5 Day Entertainment Industry Record Grossing Over $650 Million Worldwide!!

While I disagree with the comparison to the entertainment industry as a whole and movies in particular, you cannot dispute the astronomical numbers that this stereoscopic 3D game is pole vaulting. Very impressive indeed!

Here is the official press release:

- Largest Entertainment Launch in History Establishes New Xbox® LIVE™ Record with 2.6 Million Unique Players in One Day

- Call of Duty: Black Ops Was Best-Selling Video Game Launch of All Time on Amazon.com and at GameStop

/PRNewswire/ -- Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced that Treyarch's Call of Duty®: Black Ops has shattered theatrical box office, book and video game sales records for five-day worldwide sell through in dollars. The game established an all-new five-day worldwide sell-through record of more than $650 million, exceeding Activision's previous five-day worldwide record of $550 million set by last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® 2, according to internal Activision estimates.

"Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years across all forms of entertainment," said Robert Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard. "The title's success illustrates the mass appeal of interactive entertainment as millions of consumers are choosing to play Call of Duty: Black Ops at unprecedented levels rather than engage in other forms of media. The number of people playing online and the number of hours they are playing demonstrates how online gaming has become a mainstream form of entertainment and certainly validates Activision Blizzard's leadership role in online entertainment."

"There are many reasons for the success of Black Ops, but first and foremost is the fact that our team at Treyarch delivered a truly awesome game, and in the process have established themselves as one of the most talented developers in the world," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO, Activision Publishing. "There are millions of people all over the world engaging in this community. It's our job to keep them coming back for more."

In addition to beating all previous first-and five-day box office, book and video game sell-through records, Call of Duty: Black Ops set two new records on Xbox® LIVE™.

According to Microsoft:
- More than 5.9 million multiplayer hours were logged playing Call of Duty: Black Ops by end of launch day, November 9.
- More than 2.6 million unique gamers played Call of Duty: Black Ops in one day on November 9.

"With a record breaking performance on Xbox LIVE, home to the world's largest Call of Duty gaming community, Call of Duty: Black Ops has already carved out its legacy as one of the biggest video games in history," said Don Mattrick, president of the interactive entertainment business at Microsoft. "We congratulate our partners at Activision and Treyarch and are proud to continue offering the best Call of Duty experience to our 25 million global Xbox LIVE members by launching all Call of Duty map packs first on Xbox 360."

The game also was a tremendous success on the PlayStation® 3 and the best-selling video game launch of all time on Amazon.com and at GameStop.

"Call of Duty: Black Ops has been an incredible success on PlayStation 3," said Jack Tretton, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA). "Treyarch's latest efforts are driving unprecedented traffic to the PlayStation Network with the flagship online experience this holiday season."

"Call of Duty: Black Ops had the highest number of pre-orders of any video game to date," said Paul Raines, CEO, GameStop. "It went on to become our biggest video game launch ever, which bodes well for game sales as we enter the holidays."

Activision is excited about the performance of Call of Duty: Black Ops, but given that it is still very early in the holiday shopping season, the company remains cautiously optimistic.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is rated "M" (Mature) by the ESRB for Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence and Language. For additional information visit www.callofduty.com/blackops and also via Twitter @JD_2020.

About Activision Publishing, Inc.
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Publishing, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, South Korea, China and the region of Taiwan. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company's website, www.activision.com.

Source: Activision

Sony Announces 3DTVs, Playstation 3's, and Laptops by End of 2010

Michael here. Sony is set to leap into the 3D-at-home market with guns blazing. The Times Online reports that Sony chairman Sir Howard Stringer announced today in Germany that it plans on having 3D Bravia TV's, 3D-enabled PS3's and other blu-ray players, and even 3D-enabled Vaio laptops on shelves by the end of 2010.

Like Panasonic, Sony will use active shutter glasses with its systems. In my opinion an active solution is definitely the way to go for 3DTV. Sony had demonstrated polarized 3DTVs playing 3D PS3 games at CES 2009, and while they looked good, the polarization screens cut the resolution to well below 1080P.

I am curious to find out what the refresh rates of the Sony 3DTV's will be. My guess is that they will not want anything lower than the 1080p/60 per eye solution that Panasonic is employing. So 120hz will be the minimum.

However, in order to smoothly display 24P sourced 3D movies without pulldown artifacts (as well as 30P 3D programming), I believe that a faster refresh rate would be required. If I am wrong about this, please let me know in the comments below.

In any event, it looks like Panasonic now has competition in the 3DTV market space. Panasonic has the support of James Cameron and the Avatar team, but Cameron used Sony cameras on the Avatar shoot as well. Both companies have absolutely top-of-the-line products.

It will be fascinating to watch how this all plays out, and I am very happy to hear that more players are backing 3D in the home. This will be the next big thing in home entertainment, and we the customers are the beneficiaries of all this competition. Bring on the Avatar 3D blu-ray!

Avatar: Director audio/video tracks to run concurrently with Blu-ray DVD

James Cameron has three High Definition camera crews following him around while shooting "Avatar". More specifically, these crews are using technology to outfit a new feature of Blu-ray players that will allow the simultaneous viewing of the main movie AND the director speaking in another box. You may switch from one to the other as being in the foreground and the same applies to the audio. Sweet feature.

There will most likely be a trivia game and/or some simple videogames included on the Avatar Blu-ray DVD when it becomes available. Another thing to keep in mind is that Cameron is a gaming aficionado and may very well want to include a Sony PS3 game in with the DVD set. :-)

Avatar is worth waiting for and Cameron is making sure it is worth owning too.