Nintendo Announces 3D Successor of Nintendo DS 232
An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo has posted a press release (PDF) titled 'Launch of New Portable Game Machine,' promoting a new, upcoming handheld game console temporarily named the 'Nintendo 3DS,' which will feature 3D graphics without the need for any sort of special glasses. It will be backward-compatible with DS and DSi games."
An article at Kotaku speculates on how the 3D tech will work. The launch window is vague — sometime between April 2010 and March 2011. More details will be revealed at E3 in June.
April - June wormhole? (Score:2, Funny)
Between April of this year and March of next year? Details to come in June? So if it launches in April, we wont find out about the tech until June?
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Launch Date (Score:2)
The launch window is vague — sometime between April 2010 and March 2011. More details will be revealed at E3 in June.
If it's launched in April 2010 I would hope there would be *considerably* more details revealed well before June.
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Yeah, I'd predict an October-ish launch. That'll give them lots of opportunity to get supply high, parents can buy it and hide it for Christmas, but demand as Christmas presents won't wipe out the supply for those who want it NOW.
Virtual Boy 2? (Score:2)
At least I hope not.
Nintendo tries more off the wall ideas than any other company in the industry. For as many failures as they've had, they also have a higher success rate than most at creating and marketing fads. Lets hope there's something to this one and it doesn't go the way of the Virtual Boy. New Nintendo handhelds make me giddy.
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Nintendo tries more off the wall ideas than any other company in the industry.
To be fair, it also rehashes existing titles far more than any other company in the industry. The number of games in the Mario franchise alone must number over a hundred by now.
Re:Virtual Boy 2? (Score:5, Insightful)
But unlike the other companies in the industry, when it rehashes titles, Nintendo usually creates games you haven't played before.
Actually, they're sort of the exception to the rule that game companies abuse their trademarks to basically do nothing of any value. Nintendo uses their trademarks to make good games sell even better.
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Yeah, I grew up with Mario, but it is hard for me to get excited about him at this point. Nintendo needs to innovate a l
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Mario has been shoved in some lame sports series and spin-offs but the main series is exceptional and has change quite a bit from its roots. They even managed to pull off a decent mario game without Mario. Perhaps the only weak link in the chain is super mario su
Re:Virtual Boy 2? (Score:5, Informative)
You should try Super Mario Brothers Wii.
They go back to the side-scroller style with a new game - different suits, new mechanics, and new worlds in which to chase down Bowser and Princess Toadstool. It's the same type of game as the old SMB games, but it is definitely not re-hashed anything except the premise.
Probably the funnest part about it is the co-op play. The mechanics are such that you really do need to strategize and cooperate with your partner in order to succed in co-op mode. My roommate and her boyfriend are so bad together, it's hilarious. ^^
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Imagine playing Wii tennis, but to move you actually move your body.
It'd almost be like the real thing!
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The Virtual Boy was a flop of such a magnitude that nobody in the entire video game industry will [i]ever[/i] make that kind of mistake again.
For what it's worth, Nintendo is the biggest innovator in terms of how gamers interface with the console and games, but they never fully flesh it out or at least get third parties to hop on board, which is really sad. The Nintendo DS's touch screen, for example, is usually misused in such a fashion that its usage in games always feels "tacked-on" and unnecessary and
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I couldn't agree more, though I love the Wii remote and nunchuck for first person shooter games. To me, nothing is worse than having to aim with an analog stick; I typically prefer a mouse (on a PC gaming platform) however the Wii remote
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It adds rotational sensors which are much better than detecting the change in "down", but after 30-60 minutes the sensor drift becomes noticeable. It doesn't take much to recalibrate, but it throws you out of the moment.
And if you are really into a game, you might not notice until something goes wrong(ie, you try to block but eviscera
Like Walt Disney's Kill Bill? (Score:3, Interesting)
Nintendo doesn't appreciate online gaming enough and is still too stuck on maintaining its "Disney clean" image.
Then Nintendo could do something that Disney did long ago to maintain its "Disney clean" image: release edgier stuff through subsidiary labels like Touchstone and Miramax.
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Until the people with first-hand memories of it aren't running things any more. At fifteen years, the pain may be starting to fade...
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Not so sure. The Virtual Bay was the gaming industry's Holocaust, if it wasn't ET for the Atari.
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I think you're forgetting that crash thing back in the 80s. Some could argue that ET precipitated the crash, but it was only one element that factored into it.
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Nintendo tries more off the wall ideas than any other company in the industry.
Agreed, but Apple is up there...
Wildly offtopic I know, but - anybody - why has Apple never gotten into this business?
I suppose the closest they got was the Apple (i)TV, which was hardly a massive success...
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why has Apple never gotten into this business?
They did, actually. [wikipedia.org]
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why has Apple never gotten into this business/quote They made the Pippin back in 1996 and nowadays they got the itouch. I wouldn't call any product Apple has offered "off the wall" however, just good marketing and good implementations that are regularly refined to stay competitive.
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Right, except Apple isn't in "the industry." The "industry" we're talking about is the console gaming industry.
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The innovative GUI was bought. Innovation of the PDA wasn't innovative, there were many others. Innovative mp3 player was 'bigger hdd'.
Likewise, their innovative 1 button mouse is stupid. Their innovative integration of screen and computer is stupid. Their innovative drm is evil, and based on veridisk drm. Their TV sucked, pipin sucked.
The apple II was a good idea though. Props to steve Woz in 1977. Looks like pretty much every time they have innovated they've sucked horribly at it. So could y
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Really? What other PDAs were around in 1989 when Apple started working on the Newton, or in 1992 when Apple's CEO coined the term, "Personal Digital Assistant?" The innovation of the iPod wasn't that it had a bigger hard drive, because it didn't. If I recall correctly, there were 6GB HD based players at the time. The innovation was the interface. The click wheel made scrolling through your 5GB of music so much easier than up and down arrows of other players. The Macintosh was the first widespread use of the
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Sounds like an elaboration on the 3d diorama puzzle game for the DS that uses the camera to track the user's head and shifts the screen perspective to match the change in angle.
Looks like holding a window into a 3d Box. There was an article on Slashdot about a grad student that used the wii controller cameras to get the same 3d effect on tv.
Head tracking (Score:5, Informative)
From the Kotaku post that describes a Japan-only 3D title for the DSi, it appears that this new device (if using similar technology) is not 3D in the "Avatar" sense, but 3D in the "Johnny Lee Head Tracking on Wii" sense.
The image itself is still flat, but the system updates the image to present different angles based on the way you hold it (using the camera with head tracking). So you can turn the 3DS to look around objects. I think that would be a very effective (and useful) use of 3D than simply making things look like they're coming out of the screen.
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Re:Head tracking (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is an article that has an embedded YouTube video of the 3D game from Japan http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/03/with-the-nintendo-dsi-xl.ars [arstechnica.com]. Looks interesting.
However, I do not think it is enough for me to buy yet another DS product.
Re:Head tracking (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Kotaku's speculation may well be wrong. There is a technology to do 3d without special glasses. Unfortunately it sucks. The technology is based on lenticular lenses.
But that is the only known way (of which I am aware) to do stereographic 3d without glasses on something that is remotely like a standard display.
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But there is another way to get 3d... it IS called the DS. Just hold your face realllly close and you can get 3d by having different images on each screen. tada. While stupid looking I don't imagine that is a big issue.
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Well, if the DSi could do it already, they wouldn't be releasing another new system. I'm assuming this is something totally different, though it is pretty cool.
Successor to the 3DS? (Score:4, Funny)
I look forward to the successor of the Nintendo 3DS: the Nintendo 3DS Max.
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Dsi
3DSi
3DSi Turbo
3DSi: Rainbow Edition
DSi Alpha 2
DSi Alpha 3
DSi EX2
DSi EX3
DSi3
DSi3 2nd Impact
DSi3 3rd Strike
3D without glasses? (Score:5, Funny)
That's easy. The user closes the left and right eye rapidly in an alternating fashion and in sync with the stereo signal switching.
Hold it really close to your eyes (Score:2)
It's a DS, so there are two screens anyway. If you hold it really close to your face (maybe just use a rubber band to attach it) then you can see a different screen with each eye - problem solved!
Fad (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope this 3D fad is over soon. It's just another excuse to distract people with eye-candy instead of creating something more compelling.
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Either you're in denial or you have yet to realize its already here to stay. 3D Isn't going away anytime soon.
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I hope this 3D fad is over soon. It's just another excuse to distract people with eye-candy instead of creating something more compelling.
With the type of 3D you see in the movies and stuff, I agree. However, if this is done in the way suggested in the video linked to by the article (where it uses the camera to detect your movement and simulate 3D) then I don't think it's entirely useless. How often do people playing a game tend to lean to the side to see around a corner. Yeah, we all have a good laugh about it now, but if you could actually make it work, that's would be great***. One of my complains about a lot of 3D games is that the camera
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Colourizing old B&W movies is a crime against humanity, and was a fad. Now, MAKING movies with colour and sound. That was an improvement.
When will it end? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was hoping 3D would kind of peter out in a couple years but it's getting ridiculous. :(
As a man-child who hates change, the Nintendo handhelds have been the last bastion of sprite-based gaming for me. As a cyclops who doesn't see in 3D anyway, I have no interest in the gimmick. Don't you do this to me Nintendo!
Re:When will it end? (Score:5, Funny)
As a cyclops who doesn't see in 3D anyway, I have no interest in the gimmick. Don't you do this to me Nintendo! :(
Wrong smile. o)
Too close to April (Score:2)
Magic Eye? (Score:2)
Anyone else thinking stereograms [wikipedia.org]? You know, two screens and cross your eyes a bit and bits of the image pop. It's got actual 3D, and it doesn't require glasses. Of course, it would likely get INCREDIBLY tiring after a while, unless they did something interesting to trick your eyes into not thinking they're focusing weird.
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Oh no... Definitely not. I'd bet on something more like lenticular. The A/B images are split up by a fine grid of vertical lines in the screen. Like a lot of DVD cover promotional boxes.
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Let's hear from the haters. (Score:2, Funny)
I'm looking forward to all of the "Use both of my eyes? Why would I want to do that? I also prefer my games in black and white, and with subtitles held up between scenes rather than hearing the dialogue. Also, I have live musicians sit next to me on the bus and play the game music." comments.
I'll buy one (Score:2)
Gimmick (Score:2)
Seriously, when was the last time Nintendo implemented something in one of their platforms that wasn't a complete gimmick (and no I don't count the less than 1% of the time developers use the Wii Remote or DS touch screen for a function other than something that worked perfectly well with a button press)? Perhaps the N64 analog stick... I'm already less than impressed with 3D technology for multi-thousand dollar home theater setups. The chances that Nintendo will manage to produce a glasses free alternat
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Wait, did you equate pushing buttons with swinging arms? Do you honestly think that motion sensing is a gimmick layer over pressing buttons?
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If 99 out of 100 games only know if you're swinging your arms, and not where you're swinging them, then yes, I do consider it a gimmick. I can count on one hand the number of games on the Wii that actually realize the potential of the control scheme in a way that tangibly adds to the immersive experience of playing them.
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And the DS is a game system, for you know, FUN. Slashing a sword by slashing your screen is FUN. I imagine looking around the little world by moving your head (or tilting 'the world') will also be FUN.
And if you read the fucking article you'd realize you were talking about the wrong thing entirely. This is not about 3d as in different images to each eye. This is 3d as in perspective changes as you move your head. This creates a window effect, as in, i
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Doesn't seem very arbitrary to me.
Try this. Go on Youtube and watch a Wii commercial, any Wii commercial
Tilt sensor? (Score:2)
Head Tracking tech demo (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if it's going to look like the tech demo shown in this Youtube video:
Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote [youtube.com]
Y
PAX East (Score:2)
If it launches next month... (Score:2)
...there won't be much need for more details at E3 in June, will there?
Betting against Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the GameCube would be Nintendo's last console, but they survived through the worst sales they ever had with a console.
I thought the DS' twin screen gimmick would never stand against the PSP, but the DS went on to become the best selling portable of all time.
I thought the Revolution controller was a gimmick, but it touched a nerve with gamers when it was publicly playable at E3.
I thought the name of the Wii would prevent it from ever being taken seriously, but people got over it.
I thought the inferior graphical capabilities of the Wii would sink it, but the sales numbers showed the market didn't care.
I thought the Wii was just a fad when it first came out, but the sales stayed high and continued to break records three years later.
I thought Wii Fit wouldn't take off, but then it went on to exceed the PS3's entire fanbase.
I thought the 3D graphics of the 3DS would add nothing substantial to games, but by then, I learned to stop betting against Nintendo.
Re:Betting against Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)
We could go further back in history, you know:
When the Famicom came out, people thought video gaming was dead because Atari and its competitors completely imploded under the collapsing home video gaming bubble they created. It sparked a new and viable market that continues to this day.
When the PlayStation crushed the competition, people thought Sony would never look back and that Nintendo was finished in the living room. Two generations later, Nintendo is back on top.
Could this new 3DS be a flop? Maybe, but with Iwata at the helm and Miyamoto still cranking out great stuff, I doubt it-- Iwata learned several key lessons from Nintendo's failures, and Miyamoto is a gaming genius.
Nintendo Is Like Other Japanese Tech Companies (Score:3, Interesting)
Nintendo survived the N64/Gamecube era stuff, which is something Sega didn't, due to their strong hand hold market position. GBA and Pokemon carried Nintendo through some dark times.
Nintendo isn't fault less. Like other Japanese tech companies they tend to make wild, custom built technology that may fly or crash. Conveniently forgetting stuff like Virtual Boy or the weak "successes" provided by Nintendo by Disk System, N64 and GameCube to praise their recent success is kind of naivety. In particular, a
Surprise announcement (Score:2)
Is there some kind of crazy logic i'm missing here? After Sony's disastrous failure at preventing leaks prior t
head tracking perspective tricks (Score:2)
There's a link at Ars Technica that has an interesting possibility.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/03/with-the-nintendo-dsi-xl.ars [arstechnica.com]
Parallax barrier (Score:3, Interesting)
Gizmodo [gizmodo.com] says "The Japanese publication Asahi is claiming it'll use one of Sharp's parallax barrier LCDs."
Parallax barrier have been used in cell phones before, although recently people have been getting excited about the 3M system that uses frame-sequential alternating directional light emission (such as in the viewfinder of the Fuji FinePix Real 3D).
Homebrew has drawbacks (Score:5, Interesting)
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Fighting, maybe, winning, no.
You need a DSi and a DS Lite to run HB on DSi (Score:3, Interesting)
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DSi != DS (Score:2)
DS is wicked easy to play custom games on.
Which is why Nintendo learned its lesson on the DSi and its 3D successor. DSi already has significantly improved security, and it rejects most of those $20 cards. Some of the newer cards claim DSi compatibility, but I mentioned in another comment [slashdot.org] that the way to get that working is almost as cumbersome as old-school PassMe.
So if they tried to stop people from doing so it was a really pitiful attempt.
Trying to shut down all homebrew card makers is more a game of Whac-a-Mole than anything else. Once the DS Lite is out of production, it might become easier.
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Other than emulators can anyone point me to a homebrew game for ds, iPhone or psp that doesn't suck or is a port?
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can anyone point me to a homebrew game for ds, iPhone or psp that doesn't suck or is a port?
What exactly did you mean by "is a port"? When was the last major label title that wasn't a port of a major label title from some other console? The last time that happened was the mid 1990s with Parappa the Rapper. If you're talking about a direct clone with the same rules, then sure, Lockjaw [pineight.com] is a Tetris clone, but The Tetris Company has never made a game with as many switches for changing the rules to set up training scenarios.
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Other than emulators can anyone point me to a homebrew game for ds, iPhone or psp that doesn't suck or is a port?
Shameless self-promotion here, but my action-adventure game Anguna [tolberts.net], while a bit short, doesn't, in my opinion, suck. It's available for DS and GBA.
Other decent DS homebrew includes:
Twin Isles [dev-scene.com]
A touch of war [pdroms.de]
Crocodingus in Cube Island [pdroms.de]
Tales of Dagur [pdroms.de]
Of course, none of these are commercial quality, but they're fun.
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TBH it is almost as good as a phone with windows mobile. So.. thats a pretty big homebrew group.
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The DS followed this route and I've happily bought games from around the world for the DS. But Nintendo has changed this for DSi only games.
For now that will probably only include downloaded games but don't be surprised if the cheap asses out there haven't caused Nintendo to close this next iteration up e
Closed platform (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't make another gimmicky console overflowing with copious amounts of shovelware.
Nintendo doesn't release shovelware, except possibly the WarioWare franchise which is a well-executed satire of shovelware. As for third-party shovelware, the developer criteria are already significantly more restrictive than those for iPhone. If Nintendo does anything to rein in third parties' shovelware, it will draw criticism that its platform is too closed and that there is no way for a third party to make money from the platform.
And no, first-party shouldn't be the sole source of quality games.
You can't have it both ways.
No Xboy (Score:2)
In that respect, i wouldnt be surprised if the only nintendo console i ever buy anymore will be for my girlfriend, i have moved on to the xbox.
But what will you game on while away from home, if anything? It took Microsoft years to make an "Xboy" by porting XNA to Windows Phone 7 Series.
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And then there is the ipod touch, excellent pda/browsing device, but the touch-screen only limit pretty much means no serious games...
You mentioned Advance Wars. Something like that or Fire Emblem would be perfect for a touch screen gaming device. The accelerometer appears to work at least as well for driving games as the Wii Remote does in Mario Kart. So if there is something holding up "serious games" on the iPod Touch, it has to be something else.
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Re:Closed platform (Score:4, Informative)
They're few and far between, but there are a number of good games out for the Wii that aren't shovelware. No More Heroes is great, I can't wait to play the second one. Okami, even though it was a remake of a PS2 title, plays as if it was made for the Wii. Then there are the Raving Rabbids party games... really, there are a lot of good games for the Wii. Unless you only count "Halo" as a good game, and in that case, good riddance.
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The shovelware problem is clearly far, far worse on Nintendo platforms. Why is the question...
Nintendo have the best-selling platforms, simple as that. The PlayStation and PS2, as the best-selling consoles of their generations, also spawned heaps of 3rd party shite. Some publishers, such as Midas [wikipedia.org] for example, seem to base their entire business on such titles.
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Couldn't agree more with you...!
You have to wonder what Nintendo is doing. Are they concentrating more on the Japanese market or something? Why hasn't a new, REAL proper continuation of the Star Fox series been made, and not the spinoff crap they've churned out?
Conker, Goldeneye, etc type games are long gone since Rareware was sold to Microsoft, and that may have been a good decision since Rare's no longer as big a name in the gaming industry (that's really depressing). Final Fantasy, etc, is probably ne
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Yes, please Nintendo, stick to the 0.01% of the world that wants hardcore action games (to the extreme)! They'll make you a good half a million dollars before they figure out how to pirate games and are finished buying anything ever.
Or, you know, you could just not buy Imagine: Babiez/Petz/Hamsterz/Whateverz. Amazingly, when you don't pirate games, you actually only play games that are interesting to you! It's an intriguing concept, actually.
Your comment is ridiculous. Anyone with $129.99 (+tax) can buy
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So what you're saying is that you're an FPS player instead of a gamer?
Re:Virtual Boy (Score:4, Insightful)
Virtual Boy anyone? I thought they did this before :P
The VirtualBoy should never have left the prototype stage. To play it you had to sit in an awkward position and the "3D" was pretty much just a gimmick. E.g. in Wario the blocks swing in and out of the screen instead of up and down like in Mario games. I recall wondering what Nintendo was thinking when they released a product even the ardent Ninentdo fanboys back then had trouble praising.
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Agreed. There were a couple of fun games for it, but the thing really was pretty much a waste of money.
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You neglect its biggest defect of all: the headaches it gave players. How THAT got past QA...
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Hey, it works for Windows!
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And portable was a gimmick too. It's not like you didn't need both hands just to carry it around.
What's red and black and goes... (Score:2)
You forgot that the display was an eye-searing red on black. It's like they deliberately picked the color most likely to irritate the eyes on prolonged exposure. (Yeah, I know they were cheap and didn't drain the batteries much, but that was to me the #1 source of eyestrain.)
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I have a VB (got it at lauch) and - personally think it is very fun in some games and it feels like there is actual space there unlike games like quake or tomb raider.
It's issue is that it is neither portable or something you can really share with friends, the stand isn't g
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Additionally there are viewing cones. Where you have to be at the right angle to see the 3d.
Which is just fine for a handheld because like most major-label PC games, handheld games use one system per player.
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I second this guess. Even a lot of DVD promotional box covers have pretty good lenticular 3D. You wouldn't lose "3x" the resolution, but probably half. The grid won't be fine enough to be invisible, though. That's the only downside (and the only thing that really causes headaches).
Re:3D is overrated (Score:5, Interesting)
That's more than likely a function of your age, not the intrinsic fun of the game. Many people seem to have an age where video game enjoyment is at a peak. Afterwards we're nostalgic for the fun we had at the time. There seems to be similar effects with some genres of movie (especially sci-fi) and music.
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Your point of view is right, thank you for sharing, if you have the time, also came to see my site...
If you're going to spam forums, at least learn a bit about the culture there. No self-respecting Slashdotter would start a post how you did.