Gears of War 3 shipping with stereoscopic 3D support

Gamers with 3D TVs have had a fairly steady stream of content to get excited about in the past few years. At this point it’s safe to assume that just about every major Sony-exclusive franchise is going to continue forward in 3D, and third-party developers are jumping on the bandwagon as well, with games like Crysis 2 and Enslaved getting 3D support for both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Still, for the most part, it definitely seems as though the PlayStation 3 is the place to be for 3D games, a stigma Epic is looking to bust by announcing that the Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War 3 will ship with 3D support.

"It's still fledgling technology,” executive producer Rod Fergusson told Eurogamer during a Gears of War event in London. “It's still a niche feature. But it was something we could support, so we felt, why not?" Since the Xbox 360’s current 3D support isn’t as strong as the PlayStation 3’s, which allows for 720p visuals to be displayed in both eyes, Gears will be a “little bit jaggier in certain areas” when 3D is activated. "Instead of 720p you're at five something” he said, though he claimed that it’s not a huge difference. We figure we’re not going to have time to count pixels when blood is spraying at us in the third dimension, though we’re sure that might be a deal breaker for some of the videophiles out there.

Perhaps even more interestingly, Fergusson also confirmed the existence of the rumored 360 upgrade that would allow for full stereoscopic HD 3D visuals, though he didn’t give too much information beyond what we already knew. "As you look forward, in the next XDKs [Xbox Development Kit] coming out of the Xbox, it'll have more support for 3D or more higher quality for native support for 3D," he said, adding that it would be out after Gears of War 3’s launch.