3D has been the buzziest of the buzz words ever since Avatar came out, now every new movie is 3D. It would be fine if it stopped there but it never does. With Sony begging to push the PS3 as a 3D capable gaming machine and Nintendo announcing the 3DS. I can’t be the only one that thinks 3D is exactly the wrong way to go with the gaming industry and wants the technology to just get out of gaming, at least for now.

Don’t get me wrong, I like some nice eye candy on top of a good game but there are a few things that I don’t understand with the push for 3D in gaming. The first major one is that it takes processing and man power to do 3D; take Killzone 3 as an example. How much focus is going to be put on this gimmicky feature that only a tiny percentage of people will experience? How much extra power is needed to push the game engine to do 3D? Will it be sub HD? Will the frame rate be upped to 60fps for 3D? If that is the case this is a lot of effort that could have gone into making the game look better for the masses instead of focusing on a minority.

Another thing that ticks me off with 3D in the home is that when you go to the movies your whole field of view is taken up by the screen. This fills your entire vision with the 3D image. I’m not sure about the readers, but my TV at home is 50 inches and there is a lot of space that won’t be used for the image. This just gives me the impression that all they are doing is tricking me. That is all 3D is currently, a cheap trick to make a 2D screen appear to have depth.

Just a note about 3D in general is that it is a standard that isn’t fully developed, yea sure you can buy the TV and the 100 dollar glasses now but who says that in a years time new TV’s will come out that don’t need glasses. There are manufactures that are working on these things, it is going to happen but we don’t know when. Remember those people that got burned with HD-DVD, I can see the same situation happening with 3D.

So TV’s have become cheaper, 3D at the theatre seems like a desperate pull to get people to start going to the cinema again. 3D in the home seems like a desperate measure to get you to upgrade. It is a way for hardware manufactures to sell you a new TV, for a little bit extra of course.

3D isn't going to be all bad, but at this early stage I would rather go to a movie theatre and have 3D as an exclusive technology to sell tickets. That may sound strange to some, but a cinema can adapt new technology much quicker than the average person and until I am shown a game that is enhanced beyond the visual aspects by 3D then I will remain against the switch. How long will the 3D love last? I hope not long because if the next generation is completely 3D I won’t be happy.