Electronics giant Sony announced on Wednesday its first 3D-ready Blu-Ray disc player, offering firmware upgrades to their existing home theatre systems, which will enable users to view High Definition 3D content with the existing players.

Movies can be played on the players in High Definition, based on the Blu-ray 3D specification, which was finalized by the Blu-ray Association in December. The new model BDP-S470 is also capable of streaming content from sites like Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, Slacker, NPR, Sony, and more.

Not only will the new player project 1080p high-definition images with additional depth, for which special 3D glasses will be required for full effect, but will also supports devices ranging from Blu-Ray disc players, gaming consoles like Playstation 3 and other high definition TV models, including LCD and Plasma screens. The specification will enable support for 3D graphic menus and 3D subtitles.

The step taken by Sony is no co-incidence, looking at the growing adoption of 3D in visual arts. James Cameron recently knocked down his own movie “Titanic”, with the 3D juggernaut “Avatar” as the highest-grossing movie of all time, churning in more than US$2 billion worldwide as of early February and close to $629 million in the U. S., as of last week.

Sony has been putting its focus on the 3D technology since over a year now, when it announced that it would broadcast FIFA World Cup 2010 worldwide from South Africa in 3D.