The first round of exclusive content for Halo Waypoint will appear this Saturday, as portal managers plan to release full-episode previews of the anime series Halo Legends.

Waypoint will feature daily content updates, including developer interviews, trailers and community activities.

“Waypoint is really an extension of the Halo universe, a place where Halo fans of every stripe can explore – in deeper and broader ways – the fiction and the community that ties them together,” said Frank O’Connor, development director at 343 Industries, the division overseeing the Halo franchise. “All we want to do is give them a way to do that from the same spot on the couch and the same controller that they use to engage with the core of that universe: the games.”

Waypoint will also use a career tracking system charting a player’s progress across all games in the Halo universe. Players can also receive special Avatar awards for completing specific accomplishments within games. For example, players that download the city map to their VISR in Halo 3: ODST receive a free t-shirt for their avatar. Players who have already captured these achievements will earn the rewards once they join Waypoint.

According to the listing, the game will retail at $40 (£24) and arrive on March 23. Developer Capcom has assured fans that it will be a standalone title, rather than an update to last year’s Street Fighter IV.

The studio has revealed that the new release will introduce “roughly” eight new characters, including newcomer Juri and recurrent fighters Dee Jay and T. Hawk. It will also include updated online support, rebalanced gameplay and a mystery bonus for owners of the original SFIV.

Capcom is yet to officially confirm the price or release date, but the developer previously announced that the game would retail in the spring.

It is unknown whether the game will arrive in the UK alongside its US release.

“3D is clearly on its way to the mass market,” said Sony CEO Howard Stringer during a news conference. He cited movies, sports and computer games as areas the technology is expected to have its biggest impact.

The TV, which will be part of its Bravia LCD range, will launch sometime during 2010 and require users to wear special glasses to get the 3D effect. The glasses have filters in them that switch on and off at high speed matched to the image coming from the TV set so each eye sees a slightly different image.

In addition to the set, Sony said it would add 3D compatibility to other electronics products including Vaio laptops, the PlayStation 3 games console and Blu-ray Disc players. Earlier in the day the Blu-ray Disc Association said it would add 3D support to the format thus helping to create a common standard for content on video discs.

The technology to make and show 3D movies and television programs has been around for decades but has repeatedly failed to take off. In recent years the movie industry has looked to 3D as a way to get people back into movie theaters and the number of screens capable of showing 3D movies has increased. There are expected to be 7,000 3D screens at the end of the year, according to data presented by Sony.

But despite the growing number of screens, the amount of 3D content is still relatively small.

Stringer emphasized Sony’s broad reach into all areas of the content business as an advantage for the company. Through its many divisions it owns both movie studios and television stations and produces hardware from the cameras used to make movies to the projectors and televisions used to show the content.

Pulling all of this together to create a chain of 3D content will be a key test of Stringer’s reforms at Sony. When he took over as CEO in 2005 he found a dysfunctional company where business units would rather set their own course than work together.

Stringer has worked to break down internal barriers but despite several rounds of restructuring and layoffs, the company continues to report poor results. In its most recent quarter, the key electronics division reported record losses. A management reshuffle earlier this year saw executives close to Stringer installed on the company’s board increasing his power but the effects are yet to be seen.