I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster.

[notachair]

Trailer


E3 presentation part 1


E3 presentation part 2


E3 presentation part 3


PS3 support announcement

[retep998]

Already saw the day it came out.

[Game_boy]

Can this be the general E3 thread? We may actually reach more than one page this way.

Nintendo's E3 was awesome. Kirby Wii. Donkey Kong Country. Zelda. The 3DS, which has glasses-free 3D and is getting Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Mario Kart,  Paper Mario, Starfox, Ocarina of Time, and about 60 other games.

Microsoft only had Gears of War, and Kinect (Natal). Looks like they cloned the Wii. All the launch games are Sports, Fitness or Party games, and it only supports two players yet costs $150 on top of an Xbox. They'll get a few sales from Kinect Sports though.

Sony was medium quality. They had some cool 3D but the TVs/glasses are expensive. Twisted Metal was a surprise. No PSP2 to counter the 3DS, but the PSP got a few games. A lot was leaked before the conference. Move was another Wii clone, but they put some good 'core' games on it. And they got Portal 2, which is probably also coming to the Xbox and I wish was coming to the Wii (would work so well with the pointer).

[Josh @ Dreamland]

Cloned the Wii? Nah, they cloned the Eye Toy. Which was "kind of cool," but never really did Sony any good. Of course, no one is as good as Microsoft at tooting their own horn, so maybe they'll manage some good sales.

I've not heard of the 3DS and don't want to go looking; what exactly is it? (Other than a model format I'm going to hate implementing)

And yes, the Wii is the only console that would really make sense to put Portal 2 on. The controls would be perfect. Damn you, valve. Probably too much effort to get working.

[IsmAvatar]

3D + DS = 3DS
Sounds like it uses that "unfocus your eyes" 'technology' to get a 3d effect. In case you accidentally refocus your eyes again, the image gets confusing, but there's a 2d switch. I wonder if there's any potentially bad effects that can have on your eyes if you do that too much.

[Game_boy]

@Ism

All the impressions I've read are that the 3D works perfectly as long as you don't have a crazy viewing angle. Nothing about unfocusing; the screen directs alternate columns of pixels in the direction of each eye. Some journalists said the 3D is more convincing than Sony's own 3D televisions plus glasses. If you have a link to the "refocus your eyes" thing then I'd love to read it because currently I think I'm buying it.

@Josh

MS are clearly selling to the Wii audience, but I don't think it'll be successful as they're not offering anything more than Wii does and it costs more than a Wii to buy.

The 3DS is Nintendo's next console (not another DS iteration). It has two screens like a DS, but also an analogue-stick-functioning pad and a 3D effect on the top screen that doesn't require glasses. It's useful in games because you can judge the height and distance of things in front of and behind the player character accurately (like Mario jumping onto a platform in front on him, or flying a plane under an upcoming obstacle). The effect can't be shown on any videos unfortunately, so you have to rely on the people who've played the demo machines to say what it's like. The 3D is adjustable from zero to full as Ism said.

And the graphics are somewhere between a Gamecube/PS2 and a Wii, on the best looking games shown.

It seems to have much better third-party support than the DS did, because there's no competing PSP.

[IsmAvatar]

Game_boy: No, the article I read was just pretty vague, and gave me the impression that it uses the unfocus your eyes technology. No doubt I was just misunderstanding it.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

XD
Yes, stereograms can cause horrible eye strain and headaches. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if generated by a computer (such as 3DS).

Game_boy, what you describe would vastly alleviate this, but would require the DS be held at a certain distance from your face. It probably uses "tilt this VHS box to see the cover art plus scared faces or sans clothing" technology. The little triangular prisms covering alternating lines of pixels. I always hated those. Perhaps it will be better since you don't have to move the DS to see them. Turning the DS upside down would invert the 3D, though, and twisting it past a certain point would remove 3D completely (And possibly visibility). Glare on one side would also remove 3D.

[Rusky]

It's not the un-focus your eyes thing. That would be horrid (but would work from weird viewing angles, and probably not have a hardware 3d depth slider). The DS has to be held in the right position in front of your face, with a little bit of leeway, to match your eyes. That's what the slider is for. I'm pretty sure it's just a higher-res version of those VHS box things with the angles closer so you don't have to tilt it.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

Well, I was thinking that it wasn't supposed to be tilted because this time, one eye is to be on either side. So they would intentionally be seeing different images. Instead of doing it accidentally and looking awful.

[Game_boy]

@Josh

No one who has had hands-on time has complained about eyestrain, or it being hard to position yourself for the effect. There is a region of space your eyes have to be in, but it's where you would naturally hold the DS anyway (1-1.5ft away), and it can handle a little bit of tilting in any direction without losing the 3D.

Rusky has the idea here. It's directing different images to each eye, but the technology's been fixed so it's not a pain to be in the right place.

It works at least as well as 3DTVs plus glasses (again according to impressions). If that's true then it shouldn't be a problem.

When I get one at launch and Josh hasn't been struck by a meteor yet (as happens to all good indy projects) I'll give you my actual impressions.



 

[Josh @ Dreamland]

Odd; this is the second time Rusky has concurred with me on something but you have taken his to be the accurate. And mine was the one with the complete description this time.

But yeah, Rusky and I agree that it's probably a high-res version of what you see on the front of some old VHS boxes. Where you tilt the tape and the image changes, because every other "pixel" is refracted a different direction. You still couldn't twist it, say, 90 degrees and still enjoy the 3D. And a glare on either side would still kill the 3D as well. I'm not sure how they implemented a slider...

Eye strain referred to Ism's stereogram idea. VHS boxes only cause annoyance, not strain. And yeah, tilting wouldn't hurt; only rotating along the normal of your vision would.

As for the meteor, I think Dylan got hit by it when he was still on the project.

[Game_boy]

I've never seen a VHS box thing, so you're probably right. That's why I didn't say yes.

I just know that Nintendo always pushes the edge of technology when it comes to features they care about (Analogue stick, motion control, touch screen, rumble). Even the Virtual Boy was the best that could be done at the time. So if it can be done well, it has been.

[Rusky]

The slider probably adjusts the angle of the two images by physically adjusting something on the screen. Or maybe some LCD-like thing that refracts them at different angles.

This kind of 3D could still cause mild headaches after a while. The reason 3D glasses do that is that you're missing half the depth cues you normally have, and this screen work on the same principle- send a different image to each eye. If, sometime in the future, we could direct a different image in every direction (so that moving your head around would change the angle you view the scene from), we might finally get rid of those headaches. But it's not like you don't get headaches from looking at a screen for a long time anyway.

Post made June 27, 2010, 07:30:25 am was deleted at the author's request.