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Sony: Nintendo 'Doesn't Have To Bash' 3D Glasses
by Kris Graft [PC, Console/PC]
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July 1, 2010
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When Nintendo unveiled the 3DS at E3 in Los Angeles earlier this month, the company emphasized that there's nothing between the gamer and the screen -- the handheld can create a 3D effect without the use of glasses.
Nintendo of America head Reggie Fils-Aime also poked fun at competing 3D gaming solutions that require glasses, and Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida didn't appreciate the detracting comments.
"I have hope that they have a broader perspective with 3D," Yoshida said in an interview with IGN. Many of Sony's game studios are working on 3D titles for PlayStation 3 that require glasses.
"When you listen to what they are saying about the effect of 3D perspective to the games, they are saying the same message we are, but they don't have to bash some small part of what the other company is doing," he added.
During Nintendo's E3 press briefing, the company showed slides with pictures of despondent people in front of TVs, with black glasses superimposed on everyone's faces.
"Man, those glasses. And make no mistake, that kind of fashion-forward statement doesn't come cheap. Don't be surprised to pay a hefty amount for those glasses -- and that's for every person in the room," Fils-Aime said.
While Yoshida said that 3D is a "small part" of what Sony is doing with PlayStation 3 at the moment, the company put the technology front and center at E3, showing off 3D games including Guerrilla Games' Killzone 3.
Yoshida said that the industry should work together to push 3D on all platforms, from handheld to cinema. "With the latest technology, the glasses are light and you kind of forget you're wearing them after awhile," he said.
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There are also lots of people who really DO enjoy the 3D tech btw the way too. I am one of those people. I love movie at the theaters in 3D, provided that they were originally filmed in 3D and it was not shoe horned on like "Clash of the Titans". That 3D was so bad I did not even bother and just saw the normal version. But Avatar, Coraline, Monsters VS Aliens, and Alice in Wonder Land were all really good in 3D.
When the 3D HDTV's get a bit better and I cab afford them I am getting one for sure. Having 3D in my living room would be awesome! Not to mention all the 3D games. Elder Scrolls 5 in 3D? :D
http://www.thinkdigit.com/Gaming/New-PlayStation-Move-ad-ridicules-Nintendo-Wii_
4220.html
http://www.joystiq.com/2005/08/26/sonys-phil-harrison-goes-crazy-on-nintendo-ds/
http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25783329
and for good measure, today on Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/01/sonys-active-shutter-glasses-now-on-sale-150-
buys-your-eyes-a/
30 seconds on google. This kind of PR work is absolutely astonishing. After all, the point of giving IGN an interview is to spread some positive spin about yourself - the interwebs are taking this very differently.
At this point I've resigned myself to the fact that I can always rely on a good laugh from Sony mouth men. Keep it coming - it makes for endless webcomics.
That said, I think Sony feels threatened by Nintendo's new handheld. Granted, it's not a direct threat as the handheld market is somewhat seperate from the console market. Watching something in 3D on that smaller screen (I got to tinker with that demo unit at E3) and watching something in 3D on a much larger screen are two different experiences. But I think Sony's thrown a bit because Nintendo's doing everything they want to do, at a much more affordable price point.
Can someone tell me another way to pull it with 2-4 people other than glasses? (Shutter or otherwise?)
I'm interested in it myself after the Ctrl-Alt-Del guy talked about his experience with the NVIDIA offering, but I think the first year or two is going to be... weak.
So he is basically saying, they shouldn't put their unique feature, the feature, that distinguishes them from the competition in front?
Well, both lenticular arrays and even parallax barriers can be made so there are multiple 'sweet spots' around the screen. Essentially there are alternating left and right eye view areas produces radially around the screen and straddling the border of the correct pair gives you the stereo image. Unfortunately standing across the wrong zone inverts the stereoscopy (a bit disorienting), but it is possible and some are working on it. Eye tracking can help to swap the images to ensure a viewer is always in a sweet spot, but this only works for one user. BTW, lenticular tech doesn't lose brightness, and creating a reflective parallax barrier could theoretically recoup much of the lost light - perhaps Nintendo are even using this, as many show-goers testified the brightness was excellent.
The reason the active shutter glasses are so prevalent (as opposed to the RealD type circular polarised glasses) is that almost no adaptation to the TV tech was needed - all they had to do was switch the images very fast, and their >100Hz LCD tech could already do that, so the TV companies figured they had a way to sell existing television tech for a lot more money than it cost before.
Now if Sony had founded some kind of 3D steering committee that Nintendo was a part of, then I could see a point to accusations of not showing team spirit. This is like Compaq (remember them?) being indignant that Apple should dare put a capacitive touch sensor in their phones and then espouse their achievement.
PS, I found some more great ones:
http://www.destructoid.com/eyetoy-developers-diss-the-wiimote-live-vision-camera
-112648.phtml
http://www.lowyat.net/v2/latest/sony-disses-nintendo-labels-the-dsi-as-a-device-
for-kids-12.html
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3175232
http://www.destructoid.com/sony-ps3-wiimote-will-rule-them-all-158087.phtml
Wrong. Sharp is using the tech to make non-glasses 3D televisions."
Please tell me when it is more than vapor ware.
And if it does become more than vapor ware I can guarantee that Sony will have it in their HDTV's too soon their after.
He's saying they shouldn't put their unique feature in front AND they should help Sony sell 3DTV's.
Now, they are pushing 3D. It certainly sounds like to me they are trying to wedge 3D into their games in order to push the technology in homes for their TVs. This might work, but is it again, at the expense of the gamers?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml_5mj4HvB0
But when they get slammed, it's not cool?
Sony as an entire company is banking on 3-D. So yeah, it's not just about the PS3. But still, they have to be able to take what they dish.
Mostly because for me, without glasses it won't work. (too long to explain here, but is a vision problem that I have...)
Relying on the use of expensive technology to add so-called "value" to a game is already a confession of not being quite sure about how to build a great game in the first place.
Moar creativity. Less engineering.
3D is to video gaming what $500 shoes are to teenage girls.
The problems with this technology is that is cuts the resolution in half. This means you can only use half the screens resolution. This is a step backwards rather than forwards in my opinion. Also there is a range in which the player has to be from the screen for it to work right, the illusion is easily destroyed otherwise.
3D glasses allow the high resolution and the feeling of objects actually coming out fo the screen as well. It is much better techology in my opinion, however they need to work on making glasses not seen as a bad or uncomfortable thing.
The stereoscopy producing an images that 'comes out' or goes in is independent of the technology supplying it. Both systems are capable of producing an image that appears to come out, but almost all implementations (including cinema) avoid having things stick far out because it forces the eyes to converge acutely, which feels forced and unnatural to most eyes when done quickly, and are accentuated since depth of field effects are strongest in this range, which of course must is lost in rendered imagery since the system can't tell what you're focusing on and apply appropriate blurring across the image. Moreover, everybody's eyes are separated by a different amount, and objects coming towards you produces sharply different natural convergence angles from person to person - assuming one ocular separation that fits all makes many people disoriented, particularly in this range - Nintendo has wisely allowed the user to dynamically control the convergence, but this only works in real time renders. Interestingly, the standard camera on the 3DS may allow dynamic perspective correction through the use of eye tracking that may alleviate these problems to a better degree than is achievable by any other metod I expect that within time, developers will create the best 'pop out 3D' on the 3DS.
As for resolution loss, the same method that delivers 3D on active shutter systems may be applied to parallax barrier technology to recover the full screen resolution (I heard the fuji camera even does this): with a parallax barrier each eye sees every other pixel column, so each eye accesses only half the total resolution, but by rapidly inverting the barrier (like temporal dithering) each eye accesses the opposite set of pixels, and by synchronously applying the alternate sampling on the LCD (one pixel over), each eye can, over time, access the full resolution of the display independently. This in fact means that twice the real resolution is visible than the total underlying number of LCD pixels - doubling the quality, just like active shutters. Nintendo's asymmetric pixel LCD implies they're not taking advantage of this, but the payback may turn out that using a fixed barrier can avoid the need of LCD tech for it - and then use of a reflective barrier can recover and recycle light that would otherwise be absorbed and lost - testimony of the 3DS's brightness and Nintendo's commitment to power efficiency imply this is the case. By this method the viewer receives the full luminance of the back light whereas ordinary parallax, shutter and polarising techniques a forced to lose at least half the brightness: another reason I think the glasses are crap.
As for viewing angle, yeah you need to sit in a sweet spot with parallax barriers (which may be partially correctable, again with eye tracking), but then tilting your head breaks stereoscopy on all these systems too. No lying on the sofa then.
I have to disagree with you when you claim that the "popping out" effect can be used effectively with both, especially in that with the 3DS, the depth of field or 3D effect goes into the screen rather than comes out of it. Glasses for example cover the eyes, they encompass all vision or all the eye can see. This allows for the "popping" out. Without the glasses, you are limited to the screen at all times, immersion is lessened by that fact. The difference is explained with the image of a bug splattering on the window of your car as opposed to splattering on your face.
You mention that popping out detracts from the game, rather focus on the play. I have to disagree with that also. It is only as good as it is designed to be. Immersion can be increased through that extra dimension, blood or dust coming towards the player, framing the scene, adding to it, rather than replacing it. In a game that is designed with breaks in the conflict, that distraction (that occupies the players perception) can be useful. Example, Role Playing Game with a moment of awe or taking in scenery in a "safe" zone. What if then, 3D effects are enhanced based upon what the player character does. Example, Batman toggling his Bat Vision in game could essentially reflect on the 3D experience being toggled on for a player as well. The power is in the design.
It is my belief as well that using "glasses" is more than just an accessory, psychologically, it can be used to put the player in a certain game state. It can block the world around them to bring them into the game world. This I strongly believe is the step towards prepping the world for virtual reality. Unless we figure out how to plug the brain into a machine, we will have to push for this idea of wearable (eyes) devices.
As I saw at E3, the Parallax Barrier tech is a smart decision for a hand held gaming device, but thats where it ends. For the home entertainment systems, the less "mobile" based systems, PB would not be so good, it also requires a special screen and thus very limited in its usage.
The experience at the Sony booth with the 3D glasses was much better. High refresh rate TVs can handle it and mixed with the Move, it works very well in terms of flow and visual appeal.
Addressing what some are saying here about Sony's joke regarding the Kinect... The difference here is that one is dealing with 3D technology, each with its limitations and possibilities, and the other is with camera based motion input. They can make fun of Kinect because it is very limited in its types of direct input. Trying it at E3, I found it to be very buggy, and as a player you feel detached from the game. A controller of any type, with direct input, connects the player (both physically and psychologically) with what happens on the screen, you are not alienated by any wrong input given by a camera. Microsoft might have screwed the pooch on this one.
This is all my opinion btw.
I'm afraid that you have fallen into the same trap that allowed Nintendo to dominate this hardware cycle. Higher resolutions and shiny new toys are not what push the game industry forward. If Nintendo's 3D solution puts goggle-free 3D into their handheld gaming device and it creates a wealth of new experiences for the players, then doing so at the cost of resolution is easily a fair trade off. Resolution and hd graphics do not a great game make. Great games are what make those things worthwhile. So the 3DS isn't a step backwards at all, its a step in a different direction. And that kind of strategy has worked very, very well for Nintendo up until this point, hasn't it?