I wouldn't say that. Most people reading this are enthusiasts who spendhundreds to thousands of hours a year gaming. If anything I would say most of the people here if they were enthused about 3D could justify the expense, the issue isn't what the above gaming computer costs but how much people value their entertainment time. The cost of the 3D is only what it costs above and beyond what you already have divided by the number of hours it would get used. At even a rate of 250 hours a year over two years $1000 worth of expenditure only comes out at $2 an hour.

misleading OP title.

is this for games that have to be converted or games nativly made for 3d?

lol we none this for ages. thats why microsoft dont want 3d on xbox. cos xbox absalutly hates 1080p so it would be even harder to make 3d

Actually the Xbox 360 could do 3D even better than the PS3 could except for the fact it doesn't have HDMI 1.3 which is easily fixable with a hardware revision. The big issue is the legacy of all the Xbox 360s which will be incapable. I guess its a good reason to go out and get the slim eh?

The thread title is incorrect. Game complexity won't really suffer from 3D, there is of course a processing cost for stereoscopic 3D effects just like anti-aliasing and HDR don't come for free.

The early games supporting stereoscopic 3D are simple rebuilts of existing games, of course there will be better optimised/impressive examples in the future with games being built with a 3D option from the go.

I don't think MS can change hardware specs just like that. It would be as bad or worse than suddenly approving the release of games that required an HDD to play.

Worse from the standpoint that it tells consumers if you want to play this, buy a new Xbox. We've seen a lot of console add ons over the year, but no mid-cycle changes that actually required the consumer to replace the console itself.

@ Squilliam

Its a minor standard. They could do it, but they won't likely do it as they cannot justify the software costs to third parties. Its not changing a spec, its just accepting a higher standard. Its no more different in a practical sense to them upgrading the wireless adapter to the N specification. I don't believe they are going to do it, but with Natal and keeping the system on the market longer I'd say they would have at least thought about it.

Or from another perspective not enough bandwidth to main Ram. (or combination)

Currently 3D gaming on PC is something of an expensive experiment, even for enthusiasts. Expensive from the standpoint of what you're getting right now for the money you put in.

Sure, it's only $200 for a pair of Nvidia 3D glasses w/ kit. About $400 for a 120Hz 1920x1080 LCD screen (seen 1680x1050 displays going for as low as $250), and about $300 for a decent current gen 3D capable VGA card(s) set up, which adds what, about $1000 or a little less to add 3D visuals? And the key benefit currently allows you to play current games with 3D vision. Games that were not originally coded to take advantage of the 3D visuals by incorporating them into game play.

So yeah, neat, but hardly compelling.

Maybe when 120Hz displays become the standard, but even when that happens, using 120Hz LCD panels isn't even ideal for 3D application due to the technology itself. A lot of users have been complaining about the smoothness of the display output (variances in refresh rates; google it) in 3D mode on the types of LCD panels currently available. DLP, plasma and OLED are all more suitable for 3D application, but all these display types are currently seldom used for desktop PCs. So either we need to start seeing better 120Hz LCDs or PC 3D gamers are going to want to switch to different display techs.

A lot of effort for what is currently pretty mediocre pay off.

But we'll see if it continues to take off. It just doesn't seem too compelling currently without the inclusion of 3D Blu Ray movies and 3D games designed to be played in 3D from initial concept.