March 25, 2011
By SETH SCHIESEL
Nintendo’s new 3DS device is quite literally like nothing you have seen before.
Have you ever watched full-motion 3-D video without wearing those annoying special glasses? Didn’t think so. With the 3DS, set to makes its debut on Sunday, you will.
In the guise of a hand-held game machine that costs about $250, Nintendo has produced a most astonishing entertainment device. In an age of technical wonders, Nintendo’s only competition in innovating personal electronics is Apple.
Though the DS has sold substantially more units than the iPhone (about 145 million DS’s worldwide by the end of last year, to about 90 million iPhones), it generally eludes the attention of the technology and media elite because so many of its users are children.
That will change very quickly now. Just about every child in America who likes video games is going to want a 3DS; the clamor will reach a fever pitch this weekend and will continue straight through the summer and into the holiday season. And millions of adults, who previously paid little attention to their kids’ game machines, are going to look at it just once and say, “Wow.”
The 3DS (and 3-D television) simply feels different from 3-D movies. In a movie theater the 3-D effect often brings the sensation that things on the screen are coming at you. Like many viewers, I often find that distracting and unnatural.
On the 3DS and in 3-D television, the effect is more that of depth, as if the screen were a window into a reality where your eyes could perceive the depth and relative position of objects. The big difference, of course, is that with 3-D television, as at the movies, you have to wear special glasses, which no one really wants to do for hours on end.
Nintendo has engineered a way for the screen essentially to beam out those separate images for each eye without the viewer’s needing any special eyewear or headgear. You look into the 3-D top screen on the DS, and it’s like watching a moving hologram that is under your control. It is simply magical. (See the sidebar for details on actual game experiences.)
You don’t have to watch in 3-D — in fact, Nintendo warns that children under 7 should not use the three-dimensional effects because their optical systems may not be sufficiently developed. There is a slider beside the 3-D screen that adjusts the intensity of the 3-D effect or turns it off altogether.
The catch is that for the 3-D effect to work, you have to hold the device (which is roughly five inches wide) fairly straight in front of your face. If you look at the screen from an odd angle or from off to the side, it doesn’t work properly. But that’s O.K., because most people hold an electronic device like this straight in front of them anyway.
This is why similar technology has not been used in normal home televisions: most people don’t watch TV straight-on. Instead they sprawl out on couches and chairs at all different angles from the screen. And here’s where it gets really interesting: in addition to games, the 3DS can play 3-D movies and streaming video from the Internet. Nintendo hasn’t announced specific deals yet, but the company demonstrated 3DS versions of films from Disney, DreamWorks Animation and Warner Brothers last year.
My understanding is that the core display technology involved here has been widely known for decades, just as the core technology behind Nintendo’s revolutionary Wii console was not deeply esoteric.
As with the Wii, the genius that Nintendo has demonstrated is not so much in basic technology but in brilliant engineering and empathy for everyday consumers. Nintendo doesn’t try to compete with other companies in delivering “more.” Rather, it tries, successfully, to be more creative in imagining unique entertainment experiences that other companies have never thought of.
For Nintendo, it is not a minute too soon. The Wii is looking long in the tooth, and it is long past time for Nintendo to at least update the Wii with high-definition graphics. (The arrival of Microsoft’s Kinect, which does away with the controller completely, has also diminished the Wii’s luster.) But for all the Wii’s accolades, the DS has actually proved more important to the company over recent years. And the 3DS now is shockingly cool.
Even beyond the 3-D screen, the 3DS is full of wonderful touches. There are twin binocular cameras on the face of the device so you can take 3-D pictures; of course, you can see them in 3-D only on the 3DS itself. You can play music stored on the removable memory card (included!). The device includes tilt-sensitive motion controls, which also function as a pedometer. In sleep mode, the 3DS counts how many steps you take while carrying it and rewards you with points redeemable in certain games based on your physical activity.
You can also configure the 3DS to connect automatically with other 3DS units other people are carrying around you — say, on a school bus or commuter train. Nintendo calls it StreetPass. You can then automatically exchange avatars with other users without even turning your 3DS on.I can’t see any reason that the sort of 3-D technology Nintendo has engineered here won’t find its way in coming years into laptops and cellphones. But the key question is always whether fancy new technology is being well employed in the service of a new sort of entertainment experience.
With the 3DS, the answer is yes.
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