Sony just bought an AI startup that turns photos into 3D volumes to make its first-party games more immersive

Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Cinemersive Labs, a UK startup developing AI tools to convert 2D photos and videos into 3D volumes. The Cinemersive Labs team will join Sony's Visual Computing Group, a research and engineering team focused on graphical technology, including game rendering, video coding, and generative AI models.

Sony announced the acquisition on its website, framing the deal as part of its efforts to "push the boundaries of visual computing and deliver richer, more immersive gameplay experiences." "Following the acquisition, the Cinemersive Labs team will join SIE's Visual Computing Group and contribute to our broader efforts in advancing state of the art visual computing within games," Sony said. "This includes applying machine learning to enhance gameplay visuals, improve rendering techniques, and unlock new levels of visual fidelity for players."

Cinemersive's most recent product is Parallax, a virtual reality app that converts 2D images into 3D volumes and lets users look around them with natural head movements. The startup built custom AI tools to make this possible, and that expertise might be what Sony is after.

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Sony has already been investing heavily in machine learning to improve graphical performance on the PlayStation 5 and future hardware, including a PS6-generation handheld that is reportedly set to feature an AI upscaler more powerful than DLSS 4.5. The company has already introduced AI upscaling with PSSR on the PS5 Pro, allowing games to run at lower resolutions and then upscale to 4K. Its upgraded version brings noticeable improvements to visual quality in titles such as Resident Evil Requiem.

Cinemersive's specialization in converting flat imagery into three-dimensional space fits perfectly with Sony's vision, and could help push PSSR further, given that the technology already relies on AI to generate additional pixels. Of course, this is just us connecting the dots based on what we know at the moment, as Sony has not shared any specific product plans tied to this acquisition. For now, it remains an early-stage move.

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For PlayStation owners, this could mean a new generation of games designed around more immersive visuals. While there's still a long way to go before anything comes out of this acquisition, AI is clearly becoming a bigger part of Sony's development toolkit, a trend that remains controversial across the industry.