Sony’s Splitscreen Solution

So you’re playing your favorite FPS with a friend. It’s a versus deathmatch mode, and you’ve managed to stalk in from behind. Just before you pull the trigger or stab the knife, though, he controls his character to immediately turn around and manages to score a lucky headshot.

Admit it, every one of us who’s ever tried splitscreen gaming has at one point during a match looked at our opponents’ part of the screen. It’s an almost unavoidable consequence of sharing the same video display. Fortunately, Sony’s applied some pretty clever technology to deter this age-old form of cheating, and make splitscreen gaming an even better experience altogether.

Aside from the obvious PS3-inspired curves, Sony’s PlayStation TV looks like any other 24-inch 3D TV set, down to the ports available. When playing alone, you wouldn’t think it different or special in any way. When a friend comes to join in, however, the true purpose of the set becomes clear: Fullscreen splitscreened multiplayer.

It sounds impossible, but actually Sony has simply just utilized the technology already present in all 3D TV sets in a clever way. All 3D TVs process two sets of images which are alternately displayed, aided by a pair of glasses that are set to very quickly switch between the left and right lens. All done at a rate faster than the brain can process, the end result is the optical illusion of 3D perception. What Sony has changed is simply to let Player 1 view only one set of images, and Player 2 sees the other set. Each player’s pair of 3D glasses is configured to only display their respective “split” screen.

However, there’s nothing stopping a real, dedicated cheater to quickly set his pair of glasses to view the other player’s screen. No matter the technology, a cheater will cheat, and the only way to stop that is to repeatedly slap the back of his head.