ARGH! INCREDIBLE GAME OVERLOAD! ...IN MARCH NO LESS!

God of War 3

Final Fantasy XIII

Resonance of Fate

Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon

CastleVania: Rondo of Blood

Cave Story

Pokemon Gold/Silver

Red Steel 2

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey

Infinite Space

Yakuza 3

...TOO. MANY. GAMES ! ! !

gamingeek said:

Archangel3371 said:

I'm sure the tech is cost efficient by now since it was cost efficient when the Wii came out. The format for the 3DS is the same as DS with the little carts so no GC disc bc for 3DS which I think is good since even the small GC discs would be too big and clumsy for a handheld plus it means more stable hardware.

 Shrinking down old tech means smaller more expensive, overheating components. It's not as simple as thinking something is old therefore cheap. The original idea was for wii to be a $100 console IIRC. 

But if we are to believe rumours, the 3DS is using the tegra chip. 

DIGITAL FOUNDRY

Nintendo has just announced its new 3DS handheld, set to debut at E3 in June, featuring "games which can be enjoyed in 3D without the need for special glasses". Bearing in mind what has been leaked about the console, and what we know about its innards, what can we expect from this new piece of kit?

This isn't the company's first flirtation with 3D of course. Back in July 1995, Nintendo released the Virtual Boy - a bizarre, table-top portable console that offered a stereoscopic 3D effect via monochromatic screens mounted binocular-style. It proved to be immensely unpopular, brought about complaints of eye strain and died horribly at retail. It's thought to have brought about the end of the Nintendo career of Game Boy creator and original Metroid producer, Gunpei Yokoi.

It's hugely unlikely that Nintendo would repeat the mistakes of its past by utilising experimental tech for its new handheld. The DS became a massively mainstream console, and we can expect that any 3D implementation in its successor will be shorn of potential technological gotchas that will make the experience of playing it anything other than immediate or intuitive.

So what can we expect? The first thing we should realise is that Nintendo is not exactly what you'd call a technology innovator, certainly not at the basic building blocks stage of the process. The company's undoubted genius is in taking existing, proven and cheap technologies, repurposing and repackaging them for the games market.

For 3DS, Nintendo signed a deal with NVIDIA around three years ago to use its Tegra or Tegra 2 IP for use in the new handheld. Note the use of "IP" rather than "chipset": Nintendo has carte blanche to retool Tegra as it sees fit. The bottom line is that it's proven tech, used elsewhere on a variety of devices and a good fit for 3DS.

That being the case, it's more than likely that the company simply has a superb concept for gameplay based on cheap, existing, most likely off-the-shelf parts. In terms of the 3D effect itself, it may be the case that we already have an existing, prototype of the basic idea already available on the DSi. Check this out. Roughly translated into English the game is called Hidden 3D Pictures!, available as DSiWare only in Japan.

Not exactly 3D, but more the illusion of it. Does this hint at the concept behind the new 3DS?
View this video on EGTV

The concept is fairly straightforward. The DSi camera is used to track movement, which is then translated into a real-time perspective-shift in gameplay. It's quite an uncanny effect. It could be argued that there is no 3D effect per se because nothing is popping out of the screen and there's no actual stereoscopy going on here. It works with one eye, obviously. So why new hardware if it can be done on DSi?

Motion estimation based on the camera alone is never going to have the reliability required for a mainstream product expected to perform in all conditions. What works as a very cool tech demo isn't going to perform in all gameplay environments. A camera-based solution won't work in the dark, for example; there's a reason PlayStation Move has glowing bulbous tips on its wand-like controllers.

The solution is simply to use an in-built motion sensor to gauge the current position of the handheld and adjust perspective accordingly. It may seem like something of a gimmick, but then didn't many of us say the same thing about the touch-screen DS or the concept of twin screens to begin with? It's entirely in keeping with Nintendo's philosophy of turning very cheap, existing technology into something brand new.

Of course, there are plenty of sci-fi alternatives we can consider. Proper flatscreen displays are out there that use a range of auto-stereoscopy techniques: full-on 3D without the need for glasses. Website 3dcgi.com has a decent roundup of different displays both large and small that use a range of technologies including lenticular screens, sub-pixel filtering and other experimental techniques.

Typically these screens are of a lower resolution than 2D equivalents and have very limited viewing angles. What makes this an interesting fit for the 3DS is that the latter wouldn't really be an issue for a handheld console, where the unit is operated very close to the user and probably well within the viewing "cone" where the effect would still work.

In this instance, there would be nothing to stop the full-on 3D effect working in concert with other technologies like the motion sensor or indeed head-tracking from the camera - though it's still unlikely that Nintendo would release a machine that didn't work properly in low light or indeed in pitch-black conditions.

All told, Nintendo's intriguing "pre-announcement" this morning is puzzling both in its timing and its content. The anticipation level for this year's E3 just got turned up a notch.

Agnates said:

Ops, disregard my last post as well then, lol. If it's possible in the current DSi then why would they pimp it for 3DS? They probably have more tricks up their sleeve for the tech, though I'm sure most outlets will now pretend it's a fact it only uses the camera or something... Thanks for that quote. PureDepth still possible

 That's what I was thinking, hey this is on DSi so why a whole new handheld based around it? But hey, it IS nintendo

Pachter

Wedbush Morgan analysts Michael Pachter has told CVG that the just-announced Nintendo 3DS will need to have more of a "breakthough in gameplay" than just a 3D display - otherwise other firms like Apple will simply mimic it.

Pachter mused over how Nintendo might achieve 3D without the use of glasses. "I don't understand the technology behind a 3D display that doesn't require glasses. If it's so easy to do, why would Samsung put out 3D HDTVs that require glasses? My guess is that Nintendo has figured something out that is either very cool and advanced, or is a gimmick, and until I see it, I really won't know."

Pachter went on to comment: "What's interesting to me is that Nintendo is so bold. It seems that if 3D on portable devices was easy, Apple would have beat them to it. If they truly pioneer a technology, my guess is that Apple will mimic the technology. Without a real breakthrough in game play (as happened with the DS), I'm not sure that this device will do much more than serve as a replacement for current DS owners."

What do you reckon, readers? Is 3D enough to get you excited for a new (probably more powerful - considering it's confirmed to be the "successor" to) DS?

Nintendo this morning revealed the 3DS which it plans to release by the end of March 2011. Which is excitingly soon, by the way.

 Pachter may be right in that, well remember how the DS was announced prior to E3 as a dual screen handheld? 

One aspect, then we learned at E3 that it had touch screen and microphone. 

Agnates said:

How is Pachter unaware of the multiple techs that want to provide 3D without glasses out there? Great analyst.

And all 3D is a gimmick. And no matter what Nintendo did others could emulate it. Like iphone did the touchscreens.

 and how is it in any way what so ever insightful to say that "i don't understand it but it will either be good, or it won't be"?  why does this guy get paid?