Nintendo 3DS

http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/03/23/news-nintendo-quot-3ds-quot-announced.aspx

If they can pull off 3D without the glasses they can count me in.

DuckReconMajor said:

If they can pull off 3D without the glasses they can count me in.

$100 bucks says that the camera is built into the clamshell between the screens and uses facial tracking to decide how to render the scene and emulate a 3D experience.

I've only seen 3D effects on a TV at a Panasonic showroom in Tokyo, but it looked really horrible. Old fashioned "2D" looks much better than those cut-out paper dolls. I can't wait until the whole 3D fad is buried.

The only tried and true method to project a real 3D object or scene with actual depth and volume is holography, or a 3D array of LEDs/lamps.

With that being said, there are some novelty toys such as an ellipsoid-shaped mirror that causes a "ghostly double" of anything placed inside it to appear suspended in mid air.

Also, Sharp had plans to sell "3D" monitors for some time now, and had even presented a working model....you do the math.

I'm sick of all this 3D bullshit. I cannot use any of it.

They didn't really specify what "3D" means, so it could just be stuff like this (already available in some DSi game):

Its already confusing that Nintendo recently made another redesign of the DS and now theres ANOTHER system in the works?!

...

But on the other hand this concept of "playing without 3D glasses" does sounds interesting.

Quasar said:

I'm sick of all this 3D bullshit. I cannot use any of it.

I think it will always remain a gimmick, but companies are salivating for a brand new way to up-sell consumers. There's a lot of people who can't use any of this stuff due to disability or nausea. I can't wait for the current hype bubble to burst.

david_a said:

I think it will always remain a gimmick, but companies are salivating for a brand new way to up-sell consumers. There's a lot of people who can't use any of this stuff due to disability or nausea. I can't wait for the current hype bubble to burst.

My local theatre better be "select" enough to be showing the 2D version of "Clash of the Titans" or I'm gonna be thinking class action lawsuit :P 10% of the population cannot make use of 3D movies, so I think it is discriminative.

Quasar said:

My local theatre better be "select" enough to be showing the 2D version of "Clash of the Titans" or I'm gonna be thinking class action lawsuit :P 10% of the population cannot make use of 3D movies, so I think it is discriminative.

I would hope that if a theatre doesn't show the 2D version of a movie, they'd let 3D-disabled people see the 3D viewing for the 2D price. But I expect theatres won't have the decency to do that service to viewers.

And I agree that, for almost a century, it has remained gimmicky, never really catching on, but there have been a few good showcases of the technology. Hopefully youtube will soon get some quality pieces; what's on there is mostly demos and crummy stuff, with a few gems.

Nomad said:

$100 bucks says that the camera is built into the clamshell between the screens and uses facial tracking to decide how to render the scene and emulate a 3D experience.

Something like this?

Could be cool.

In this video the guy is using the Wii remote and some special glasses with infrared lights on, but you could get the same effect (like you say) with a camera and facial recognition. Don't some digital cameras already have facial recognition built-in?

Yes, facial recognition is on most point & shoot cameras nowadays. The DSi already has a camera. A combination of that along with the motion sensor in the video I linked is certainly a possibility.

Of course they could also be using an actual 3D screen like that parallaxing thing Maes linked, but knowing Nintendo they will want it to be cheap and simple to keep their margins high and rake in the cash.

Quasar said:

I'm sick of all this 3D bullshit. I cannot use any of it.

I know that many cannot access this technology. My granddad cannot see out of his left eye (though with future forms of 3D this may not be a problem). Unfortunately, the many who can't will probably have little hindrance on this becoming standard. Visual media: films, television, video games, etc. is very popular despite many people being blind. Music is popular despite many people being deaf.

Discrimination, my ass! I can barely see out of my left eye, so most 3D things don't work for me, but that doesn't make me want it gone. I can still watch the movies. I've seen 3D enough times to know why people like it so much. Well, honestly I might like it more because I don't have any depth perception normally. Besides, it still wouldn't be discrimination. They're not trying to keep out us ocular cripples.

DuckReconMajor said:

I know that many cannot access this technology. My granddad cannot see out of his left eye (though with future forms of 3D this may not be a problem). Unfortunately, the many who can't will probably have little hindrance on this becoming standard. Visual media: films, television, video games, etc. is very popular despite many people being blind. Music is popular despite many people being deaf.

Which is why there are descriptive services for the blind, and closed captioning for the deaf, and many theaters offer these via headsets etc.

When it comes to 3D, it's either working or not. And I'm not going to pay *extra* so I can watch a movie that looks all fucked up because of the 3D effect that I can't perceive anyway.

My particular problem isn't being blind in one eye, it's strabismus. It means my eyes don't align properly. So when it comes to stuff like this, what I end up seeing is completely wrong, because they inevitably rely on the parallax effect. It gives me a headache to even try.

I don't want it "gone" either, but there ARE 2D versions of all of these films. The fact that I can't choose to watch them because of artificial reasons is annoying.

I've wanted to see head-tracking used seriously ever since I first saw the video that fraggle posted, so I'm a little bit excited. Such a technology wouldn't "discriminate" against the depth-perception-impaired, anyway.

Another worthless DS variant.

It prints money!

But seriously, good for Nintendo. We are obviously not the target market for this system. I'm sure they'll sell like hotcakes, because there's a market for crap like this. And apparently Nintendo's the only major gaming company smart enough to realize this, still, despite all of the charts detailing how successful this strategy is.

I would be a happy guy if all consoles were like the Wii and DS are and "progames" went back to being a PC thing.

what's all this dumping on the DS series for? I'd say the DS might be the best system of the 00's...

Anyway, I just saw a leak today that it was NOT head tracking, but rather some screen that makes the left eye see a different image than the right eye, allowing for 3d. Now I can't find it.

To be honest I think this is just an April Fool's joke, seeing as how its next month. (though I am probably wrong)

Shaikoten said:

I would be a happy guy if all consoles were like the Wii and DS are and "progames" went back to being a PC thing. [/B]

Epyo said:
[B]what's all this dumping on the DS series for? I'd say the DS might be the best system of the 00's...

Both quoted for truth.

The DS is awesome, and while some people may not appreciate some of its gimmicks, there are games and customers who do appreciate them. I'd say that's one hell of a strength for the DS: It's a system that's able to cater to a huge variety of gamers, given proper games. On the one hand PSP alienates people who enjoy the dual screen and touch screen, while on the other making games for DS doesn't mean that every game has to force you to use these features if you don't want to use them. So there's much more variety, and just in case if you happen to enjoy both more gimmicky games and "hardcore" games, you can play them with just one system.

So, I don't really care for 3D myself, which is fine because I can just choose not to replace my DSLite with 3DS. But for those people who care for it, great, and more power to Nintendo for tapping into it. I'll be pissed off only if we'll end up getting awesome sauce DS games that work only on the 3DS, but I'm pretty skeptical about that. It's more likely that they'll work on all DS systems, they just wouldn't have the 3D effects.

Quasar said:

Which is why there are descriptive services for the blind, and closed captioning for the deaf, and many theaters offer these via headsets etc.

When it comes to 3D, it's either working or not. And I'm not going to pay *extra* so I can watch a movie that looks all fucked up because of the 3D effect that I can't perceive anyway.

My particular problem isn't being blind in one eye, it's strabismus. It means my eyes don't align properly. So when it comes to stuff like this, what I end up seeing is completely wrong, because they inevitably rely on the parallax effect. It gives me a headache to even try.

I don't want it "gone" either, but there ARE 2D versions of all of these films. The fact that I can't choose to watch them because of artificial reasons is annoying.

I understand you don't have the same problem as those with sight in only one eye. But yes, you make a good point. I doubt 2D movies will fade out in the near future, and even then they should still be available for those who cannot experience 3D.

I hope in a couple of years all Hollywood blockbusters will be released in 3D format only.

Belial said:

I hope in a couple of years all Hollywood blockbusters will be released in 3D format only.

:(

Belial said:

I hope in a couple of years all Hollywood blockbusters will be released in 3D format only.

trollollollollo

I'm expecting a backlash from all these movies with post-production 3D. Let's just hack it in, hope the plebes don't care that it looks like ass, and reap in mo' money from higher ticket sales!

david_a said:

trollollollollo

I'm expecting a backlash from all these movies with post-production 3D. Let's just hack it in, hope the plebes don't care that it looks like ass, and reap in mo' money from higher ticket sales!

More like higher ticket prices than necessarily higher sales.

Oops, that's actually what I meant...

david_a said:

I'm expecting a backlash from all these movies with post-production 3D. Let's just hack it in, hope the plebes don't care that it looks like ass, and reap in mo' money from higher ticket sales!

Well there's ones like Toy Story that actually went back and re-rendered every scene with a second viewpoint. It was cool.

George Lucas and Peter Jackson also "expressed interest" in doing 3D versions of Star Wars and LOTR, but i'm guessing it would just be all the CG scenes in the films. I don't know if they will really go to the trouble though. Would they actually want to re-release the movies in theatres though? I'd probably see the LOTR again, and if they would 3Dify the ORIGINAL Star Wars, I'd definitely see it, since I never saw those in theatres. (Return of the Jedi space battle...mmmmmm)

EDIT: A bit of an off-topic note: I just found a 3D youtube video of a band playing some sort of music. But the draw: a mirror on the wall behind them, letting you look back into the room. Too bad the mirror is so small, and the video is low quality black/white. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU2n0X5qhU8

No, they mean the entire movies. James Cameron is going to redo Titanic as well.

This type of 3D is a total hack. Artists have to cut each frame into layers and fill in the scene "behind" the object for the alternate viewpoint. It ends up being a lot of parallax layers, which should be a familiar concept for anyone who's played 2D games. However, since there's no real depth data, everything looks like a bunch of cutouts moving on top of each other.