Gamers Are Ready for 3D, Study Says

A new study from the U-Decide Initiative has found that a majority of gamers are willing to play video games and watch three dimensionally enabled Blu-ray based movies that require the use of specialized glasses, contradicting earlier reports that show that potential customers are not interested in using the new technology.

The U-Decide Initiative says that 80 percent of customers are willing to put up with glasses as long as they get content which is custom created for 3D.

The survey also says that interest in three dimensional gaming and movies increases by only about 12% when the glasses are taken out of the equation.

The U-Decide Initiative bills itself as “an industry wide effort to survey console and PC gamers to determine what customers want, which gaming experiences will ultimately sell, and what the near future buying patterns will be. U-Decide 2010 was made possible by The S-3D Gaming Alliance (S3DGA), Panasonic, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Steelseries, Zalman, Blitz Games Studios, Computer Power User, and Meant to be Seen.”

The report produced by the company also says that 36% of gamers are interested in seeing sports transmissions in three dimensions while 20% are ready to watch full television programming with glasses on.

35% of gamers are willing to put down the money needed to put a 3D High Definition television set in the next two years, which must be encouraging news for those companies that are pushing for a bigger adoption of 3D technology.

Earlier studies suggested that only about half of gamers were interested in 3D as long as glasses were required, believing that their use led to adverse results for the vision of the player and fatigue.

Sony has said that three dimensional abilities will be added to the PlayStation 3 home console during this fall via a firmware update, with support for 3D playback of Blu-ray already available.