Wednesday, July 20, 2011

3DS Notes

Chris Kohler noted today that 3DS games are being delayed due to sluggish system sales. Of course, he also clearly explains the Catch-22 at work:
The irony is that publishers often complain that they’re crowded out of the market on Nintendo platforms because Nintendo’s own games are too strong. At this point, Nintendo is releasing practically nothing on 3DS; by that logic this is the perfect time to release games. But when push comes to shove, it seems like publishers don’t want to release their games until there are more systems out there — that is, until Nintendo sweetens the pot by releasing their own killer app software.

I don't think there's any question that at this point, the 3DS has yet to capture the imagination or fancy of the buying public. That's certainly not terminal, given that it only launched a few months ago, but some of its inherent limitations in terms of marketability (can't see the effect in a television commercial, difficult to feel wowed at a demo kiosk in an overly bright retail store) will make people question its viability sooner than they otherwise would have.

As I said before, in probably the most over-the-top post of the last decade, that the diorama effect is magical, and that's the only word I can use to describe it. But it's also true that I haven't opened it up in the last three weeks, at least.

I also noticed something extremely interesting today in terms of tech announcements: Hitachi announces high-res 4.5-inch IPS display for smartphones with improved glasses-free 3D.
The headline is self-explanatory, but what's particularly notable is that this display uses the lenticular lens approach instead of the parallax barrier method used by the 3DS display.

Why does that matter? Here's why:
According to Hitachi, that allows for some much 3D brighter images than other displays (470 cd/m2, specifically), and images that are actually brighter in 3D mode than in 2D mode.

Also, the lenticular lens technology is generally acknowledged to be superior to parallax barrier when it comes to viewing angles, which would be another bonus.

I think it would be quite reasonable for Nintendo to release an "XL" version of the 3DS at some point, and a 4.5", bright display would be quite compelling.

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