Although Sony is firmly standing behind its “no 3D” stance with the NGP for the time being, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida isn’t ruling out the possibility that it may be included in a future iteration, or hardware refresh. While factoring in cost, R&D, and related expenses, he says Sony weighed in the pros of cons of implementing various display tech before deciding to go with a 5″ OLED. Still, Yoshida is standing behind the “never-say-never” mantra when it comes to 3D.

“Our studio worked very closely with hardware groups to design NGP, so we looked at every single component in terms of choices of display. We could have had 3D stereoscopic display instead of a 5-inch OLED – there’s pros and cons – and obviously we decided to go with the latter,” Yoshida told Edge.

He added, “But we knew that those [3D] display technologies would advance every day, every month. And especially the naked-eye stereoscopic technologies – it’s such an early technology, that’s going to advance very quickly and people will see it adapted in tablets and smartphones. Our decision was based on what it we’re trying to create in terms of robust gaming experience, without the additional cost of goods to provide the naked-eye stereoscopic 3D. So never-say-never for the future, but for the launch of NGP our choices were based on what we believe the best choice was for us.”

As we’ve seen with subsequent PSP refreshes, Sony isn’t adverse to hardware changes that expand on the original design spec. It seems the jury is still out on what the future holds.

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