Disclaimer: This is a forum dedicated to reader participation and debate. All views expressed within are those of the participants and moderator, and in no way represent Insert Credit at large. What's more, there's bad words, nasty sentiments, and other crassnesses all over the place. If you're not the type, I tactfully recommend you take a hike.

Well dang howdy this introductory effort certainly went as well as I'd hoped. Since the forum format actually requires readers to log in or, even worse, to take a break from wedging dinner utensils into electrical outlets long enough to register a new account on the boards, I was afraid I'd get about five posts. Two of them usable, two telling me to go fuck myself, and one from a dude linking to his blog where he totally talked about the Nintendo DS right before the post wondering in text if drawing dozens of pictures of Sephiroth defiling Link makes him gay but after the poem about cutting himself to feel alive.

Instead, I got a baker's shit load of intelligent, thought-out responses and some primo debate. So much so that as I began filtering through the this veritable cavalcade of awesome, it started to feel like actual work, triggering an advanced state of sitting on my fat ass watching television. In short, all of you go ahead and give yourself a little pat on the back. I don't so much host this column as contract my thinking out to other smarter, more literate people.

As this column develops into the unstoppable behemoth it will undoubtedly become, this first foray reveals a few areas that beg streamlining. For starters, the nature of the column means readers' posts are associated with their avatars, apparently frightening off the loonies and otherwise discouraging people from submitting the wholly asinine non sequiturs and rancorous hate-mail I was hoping to foster in the Inanities thread. Rest assured nothing you post in this section will result in your account being barred from posting. However, should you still be leery, feel completely free to fire off a post to my personal account, with the following agreement: anything you send to me is liable for posting within the column, although I promise not to use your account name should I do so. I'm the only doofus on the 'Net actively encouraging you to be an idiot, so you might as well take advantage of it. As for my end of the bargain, I promise at least two updates per week, occasionally three. You can't force abject stupidity, so I'm not going to bother with that every-day-of-the-week stuff.

Now down to business. We kicked off this extravaganza by assessing Nintendo's DS and, more specifically, what it said of the company's business philosophy. As gamers have aged, the market has creaked and groaned and shifted. Should Nintendo do a better job of taking the changing market into account before going off on its wild-eyed tangets? Should we quit with the bitching and give Nintendo's fanciful ideas a fairer shake? Who's to blame?

When I initially posted my Nintendo DS rant, It was the general consensus that the device would be something along the lines of a GBA. A GBA that, presumably, allowed users to play a game on one screen and, say, keep track of their inventory on the second, cutting out the sweat-inducing step of pressing "start".

As mentioned, I got so many great responses it was ridiculous, and a number of them were ridiculously long to boot. I did my best to pick and choose, but I'm still getting this operation down to a science. If your post didn't make it in to the column, despair not. I would've liked to included dozens I was unable to in the name of keeping this column a length normal human beings are willing to take in.

Enough! Join me, now, as we journey to the centre of the bowl.

Note: this was a topic that apparently inspired people to think and write well. Well what the hell good am I if all of you go and do that? Since the only purpose I served was to direct the flow of your excellent responses, I've made myself useful by interjecting scenes of a sea cucumber ruining somber events. Enjoy!

In which Psiga begins his column domination

Mecha Drewzilla! I am compelled to participate in this experiment, in the name of, uh, experimentation, I guess.

So: Nintendo DS: I am reminded of that little folding LCD game that Nintendo released in the '80s, wherein Mario and Luigi load boxes onto conveyer belts. It was later reincarnated in the Game and Watch GBA title. Ditching the seam between the screens felt better to me.

And, I tell you, it's the feeling that we're looking for. Information Architecture. User Interfacing. The GBA SP, for example, is minorly different from the original GBA -- lighted screen, folding shell -- but it stands out as a marvelously serious device. The absolute goal of the 'Form Follows Function' mantra is to create something so brilliantly functional that not one person can help but appreciate its execution. The SP lives up to that.

The VirtualBoy didn't. It was gimmicky, inefficient, ineffective, and often painful. It wasn't a social device, nor a pretty device, nor a portable device; it staked its life on its stereoscopy and name-brand games.

So maybe Nintendo will coax out a Tactics title for this new DS portable. A Tactics title that allows you to view two angles of the battle at one time, and/or run through your inventory while still keeping an eye on things. Of course, since the processors are not balanced, it'll be difficult to render two equally-detailed perspectives at once. Nor is it always useful to have an inventory sitting open all the time. Anyway, if we're demanding that players pay attention to two perspectives at once, or a complex array of inventory entries to the left while activity is taking place to the right, then aren't we just begging for trouble?

Professional graphic artists often have two screens while using Photoshop -- one for canvas and one for palette -- but these are power-users who are so adept within the interface that they remember where everything is and don't need to waste cognitive energy on locating things. Newcomers to this style of interaction are often overstimulated by jumping between the boundaries of each monitor to locate tools which they are unfamiliar with. Do we really want this in a game system?

How many developers are honestly going to come up with new and meaningful ways to use two screens at once? How are they going to avoid the temptation to do the same-old-same-old and just have one screen be full of activity while the other only has a static map, or something equally inane? What's their motivation to devote R&D toward innovative game concepts when even the Nintendo guys are saying that the market is going to be very small?

I'd like to tell you that I hope they surprise me with this one at the E3, and actually show a product that I want. But that's not true. I don't want to like it. It's not that I want to hate it; it's that I'm a big American bastard who'd rather have one wide screen than two small ones. But besides tailoring their devices for smaller hands, Nintendo gives the impression that they're bucking maniacally at the thought of making natural progress...

And I think that's about the gist of it. The GameBoy has reigned as lord and master of all portable gaming for a very long time in Technology Years, but now that the marvels of convergence are taking place, portable devices will soon be capable of overwhelming a game-only platform in functionality. It's one thing to make the GameCube a game-centric console, because when you're at home you might as well have a PC to do PC things and a DVD player to do DVD player things. But when you're on the road, you want to cram as much functionality into a single pocket as possible.

I do, anyway. I know what we're technologically capable of out here. ATSC reception, high-density rewriteable media, wireless networking, high-definition screens. Plug in a GPRS cellphone for 100kbps wireless internet connectivity, or a headphone amp for portable audio bliss. This isn't even playing on the mindless 'faster/glitzier/bloodier' mantra that people say the industry is bent on right now. Just the most versatile and interesting features that can be sexily slid into one pocket.

I probably won't see even half of those features in this next round of devices, granted, but that's not the point. I'm getting off of my intended topic.

I'm trying to say that portable technology can now do games as well as a number of other intensely compelling things, but Nintendo is a game-centric company. They don't want to get into the digital TV business. They don't want to maintain the codebase of a Nintendo operating system. They don't want us to spend an hour listening to MP3s when we could spend that hour playing a portable rehash of Mario 64 (NOW WITH COIN RADAR!).

I think Nintendo might be doing this to test for new technological directions. They know they can't directly take on Sony and Microsoft in an arms race. They're now rustling at the bushes to see if they can find a game-centric angle for portable devices. Every convergence device is better off with one and only one screen, but if Nintendo can find a way to make two screens better for gaming, then perhaps they've found their new portable niche. Catch my drift, here? They've got a whole lot of new competition coming at them, and the successor to the GBA will be taking on the full impact. The DS strikes me as being a public experiment rather than a serious shift in business plan. I'm figuring that they won't be dedicating a great deal of their resources toward it.

See, it's not insanely tough for big companies to produce hardware with prefab components (as the DS is to be made). Throughout a console's production lifespan, many variations of the components are assembled to fit under the same hood. Although the PS2 looks essentially the same as it did so many years ago, the drives and boards and chips have all been changing over time to accomodate price reductions. Sony, of course, produces more than PS2s: they pump out scads of different gizmos, gadgets, widgets, and bafmodads every year. Though the initial R&D to create a new console with custom chips can be immense, a new console (or gizmo, gadget, widget, and bafmodad) with standardized components is pretty affordable by corporate standards.

If you can ride your one superpony into a thousand sunsets, then bully for you. Err, that is, if you've got one excellent device that is uncontested in the marketplace, then you don't need anything more. Nintendo's used to that. But once every device coming out is looking like it could meet or beat your device's ass, you've gotta look for a new angle. It might take a few attempts for you to find that angle, though. You wouldn't put much effort into those attempts. You might even do something a bit irrational. It's not that you're...scared, or anything... Just that you're not sure what works anymore. Hopefully you'll find something that works well, and then you'll focus on your newfound strategy.

That's my take, anyway. Really, Nintendo is approaching this as though it's not that big a deal. They know they're not banking too heavily on it. I'm sure they're hoping to get their money back, as far as the substantial investment in marketing and software development goes, but the hardware sounds like it's mostly fodder. Oh, but speaking of sound... On the main page of IC it is reported that the LCDs are supposed to make "some kind of noise." They're probably using transducers to make the glass of the LCD panels act as acoustic resonators. It's technology that has been in the works for a few years now; basically that would imply that the DS is going to have honest-to-god stereo sound. Hurrah.

Okay, I'll go away now.-

Psiga

Here's the big rub, in my mind. Like Psiga, I envision a a continued convergance of technologies. I wouldn't be surprised to see, in our lifetime, elegant little devices that function simultaneously as cell phones, PDAs, portable consoles, credit cards, and MP3 players in addition to supplying Web access and numerous other functions we haven't even thought of. If Nintendo is going to remain viable, let alone solvent, it has no choice but to release off-kilter products designed specifically for games in a way that none of the other technology giants have predicted.

A precarious position to be sure. Nintendo's pulled off this tightrope act with remarkable success over the years, barring one notable exception: the Virtual Boy. Why did the VB fail? Well hell, what do you need me to wax eloquent for when we've got Psiga around? "It was gimmicky, inefficient, ineffective, and often painful. It wasn't a social device, nor a pretty device, nor a portable device; it staked its life on its stereoscopy and name-brand games."

So then, shave a few more millimeters of the razor-thin line Nintendo has to walk. Not only do they need to remain creatively one step ahead of the competition, but there's another criteria to fill. Read on!

The not-so-jolly toymaker

At the risk of sounding completely and entirely stupid, I think I'll toss my two cents in.

There's a lot of things going on around gaming, nowadays, a few of which I won't pretend I know about. A lot of people grew up on different systems than I did, but since I could remember, I was an NES kid -- as were a shitload of other kids that I knew, especially those who lived in Mexico and never knew of the existance of another console manufacturer other than SNK (MVS, and most people didn't really know it was an actual system called the Neogeo) until the Sony Playstation in 1996, two years after it appeared and coming around to compete with the Nintendo 64, when it came out.

The effect of being an NES kid forces me into expecting a certain quality out of games. I had the luck of actually finding imported American gaming magazines in the stores my mom took me to, such as EGM (back when it didn't suck). Those magazines exposed me to all the other consoles in the world, and when I looked at them, as a kid, I thought it was overwhelming. The thing here is that while some people are suffering because they won't move away from older hardware, Nintendo is suffering because they won't move away from older ideas. Not only that, but their newer ideas are too gimmicky and -- dare I say -- outright strange. I don't know what the hell it is they think they're doing, or what their marketing strategy is -- ever since the NES, they used to dictate what it was we played during their monopoly, and that mindset doesn't seem to have shifted away as it should have. Their quality control was not flawless back then, and it really sucks right now. While a few of their games are really fun, they aren't producing anything I haven't seen before, and now they're rehashing and redoing some of their older stuff. It's an era of gaming we've been through, already. While it's not a bad era by any means, we're supposed to be moving forward. Nintendo, like SNK, seems to want to sit in the past -- and at the same time, paradoxically, get ahead of themselves. Hell, the Gamecube, for sporting specs that are comparable to a "next generation" system, is using a media format that is barely any larger (and I think it might be smaller) than the DC's GD-ROM. It doesn't quite work that way. Baby steps are fine, but backtracking isn't.

The view that what Nintendo produces are children's toys almost seems to be right on the spot. Everything I've seen Nintendo produce seems to carry with it the air of a toy, rather than some sort of extreme gaming machine. When you boot a PS2, you are greeted with a black background, some blue strobe lights and a menu, or a simple white "Playstation 2" if a game is loaded, and a bit of sound. When you boot a GC, you're greeted with a silly forming cube and some silly music. And you can even do the chimp trick. Right off the bat, you're already playing around. Interestingly, this is both an attraction to some and a let-down to others. It doesn't catch my attention, and there are no titles on the GC that make me want to own it. I feel as if it's a kid's toy, a system a child is much more likely to enjoy, and that most of the games are for kids -- and the titles that aren't, I can find on another system, usually better.

All that said, the new system they've come up with utterly baffles me. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me, and it doesn't seem to fit either in the gamer or kid category of "toys". I don't see myself buying one, not when they're still making the Gameboy Advance and GBA SP. A kid might be marveled by the use of two screens, perhaps even intimidated. A few gamers might find a use for the extra screen, but most are likely to agree with me when I say that one screen is enough.

It's true. Because of what Nintendo has done in the past, everytime they announce something like this, I'm left with a "what the fuck are they thinking?" in my mouth, because I care. If Sony released a horrible portable or a stupid new console that bombed, I'd be a lot less affected -- I would likely not even care. But Nintendo has already set itself in the minds of every gamer around. I don't think it's because I believe that they "get" it. I think it's because of what they've done in the past, and the bar they've set for themselves. I've come to expect things from them. And all of a sudden, they're not meeting up to that standard.

-NothingXS

In the Nintendo kissy-ass segment of my post, I asserted that we need Nintendo around for its unwavering resolve to reach out to the child clinging to dear life in the dark, deep regions of our hearts. As Nothing here astutely points out, this resolve is something of a two-edged sword: it carves out a continually successful niche for the Big N, but limits the directions it can take.

Nintendo's wise enough to know that it has neither the resources nor expertise to beat technology giants like Sony or Microsoft at their own game. Nintendo has little choice but to stake its claim as the lighthearted, game-centric counterpart to these 800-pound industry gorillas.

Not enough doom-and-gloom for you just yet? Well wait! There's more!

Nintendo = Michael Jackson ???

Nintendo's problem; they refuse to believe that anyone can beat them at their own game. Nintendo wrote the book on design, marketing, and buisness dealings in world of videogames. Nobody disputes that. Where it gets dicey is when their familiar moves fail them.

Remember the Power Glove? C'mon, who didn't want one of those goddam things? Nevermind that it was terrible, it's a damn glove you can wear to play video games on! Nintendo had that all-important underground appeal, and therefore they could shit gold. Even now, it's a pretty cool thing to own, like "yeah, motherfucker, I had that shit back in the day!". Street credibility never really goes away, it just becomes nostalgic credibility.

So, fast foreward to '04. We get a similarly odd product announced, and true to form, it still generates a lot of buzz. Problem is, the buzz is negative now. They still have their adherents, but it's like they're constantly on the defensive.

It's sort of like watching Michael Jackson's fans stick up for him while the man himself stays silent, or just praises himself on things nobody cares about anymore. Everyone would be overjoyed if he'd just straighten out and go back to writing music and dancing, but everytime you hear anything about him, it's negative. At this point, he could go back to just writing music, foreswear everything bizzare, and just be Dancin' Mike again -- no good. That bridge rotted away a while ago.

Jackson's always got those people, sometimes even normal people, who will defend him up one side and down the other because, Christ, it's Michael Jackson. Everyone else either doesn't care or wants to watch him burn, and either way, he's not selling any albums.

I feel the same way about Nintendo, though the hole isn't nearly as big. Nintendo's always done things the way they're doing them now: Don't release anything but the smallest tidbits of information, let the buzz grow, and make people want what we're going to give them. Luckily, the end result is usually very good, but when that buzz turns sour, it can backfire in an incredible way. Just look at Zelda. I still know people who say "Yeah, I bet it's fun, but it bugs me that Link looks like a 'Hey Arnold!' reject."

Already, it looks like this is going to be the biggest hurdle this product will need to overcome. If people aren't excited about it, or (worse) are angry about it, then the only people who will ever make anything quality for it will be Nintendo. With the dual-screen approach, Nintendo, purposely or not, has painted themselves into the corner of exclusivity; they can't even hold out for the relatively low-risk ports from other systems, a la the N-Gage. With the N-Gage, they could get a crappy Sonic port that cost Sega absolutely nothing to produce. If the DS looks like a bomb, they're not even going to get that because getting a game to play on the thing is going to be a pretty serious commitment, and who wants to throw money into what appears to be a black hole? So, we'll probably have some great Nintendo games for it...One every eight months or so.

Also, if game developers refuse to support the DS in any meaningful way, what can Nintendo honestly do about it? In the early 90's, they had as much clout as you could ever want, but nowadays? They'll be told to go merrily fuck themselves and can drive the company stoically into bankruptcy for all the third party developers will care. It used to be said about Nintendo that "You don't fuck with an 800-pound gorilla". They could get away with practically anything, because if you wanted to sell your game, you had to go through them, period. Maybe they still really think they're holding the only keys in town, or maybe this publicly-traded company wants to minimize damage from potential investors by continuing to act like they do and hoping nobody writing the checks notices, but either way, I don't think this attempt at "revitalizing games" is going to work. I don't think games need revitalizing. More importantly, I don't think Nintendo can make people think they do. For a company that relies so much on mining it's own past, it strikes me as a sign of bad things when Nintendo announces that they've just come up with the future of gaming.

BUT...

What the hell do I care in the long run?

I don't have stock in Nintendo, I'm a consumer of theirs. If the DS kicks ass, then I'll get it, get the games for it, have some fun, and enjoy it. If not, then I spend my money on whichever Final Fantasy got released that week, and probably enjoy that.

At the end of the day, that's where it's going to matter. If it's good, it'll sell, if not, Nintendo honestly doesn't have the momentum to make it sell anyway, so it'll flop. We may lament the fact that Nintendo's lost the glory they once had, but I'm not about to hold myself responsible for their assumption that I'm going to buy their crap for the name brand alone. And hey, if it turns out to be the best thing ever, then I'll apologize for my lack of faith with the one thing they've been seeking the whole time: Money.

-DeusJester

Not only must Nintendo be a creative think-tank, churn out seminal titles, and work within the confines of a toy manufacturer, it has to deal with increasingly negative press and public opinion. Like it or not, the public has certain expectations for the latest game device. Nintendo has made it a point to toss these notions aside, potentially, as we've noted, out of necessity more than quaint ideology.

And holy crap this column is getting extruciatingly in-depth. I'm concurrently brimming with pride and horrified to find that I have to direct this shit and strike some sort of thematic flow rather than selecting the five literate letters I got and then clowning around the rest of the time. Which is to say you detail-hounds presented yet another excellent stumbling block facing Nintendo.

The Way of Miyamoto -or- Shigerudo

I think this is a key point.

Miyamoto... is Nintendo. His existance and expertise permeate through the entire company, on every level. He is their image. He designs their controllers. He sets their development philosophy.

The problem is--brilliant as Miyamoto is--he isn't cut out for this. The artist is not a buisiness man, nor is he a teacher. The things that come out of Nintendo's main development teams these days are Miyamoto games without Miyamoto. Imitations. He is training Nintendo's next generation of designers and thinkers to be him. That can't work. You can't teach what makes his games special, because what makes them special is him. Nintendo needs people with the willingness to venture forth on their own, taking stabs at creating a voice. They need the freedom to do this.

They need to be more like Sega, in other words.

Nintendo and Miyamoto need to realize that the best place for Miyamoto is in the proverbial workshop, doing what he does best. Like you said, it happened with Pikman, and that's about it. Miyamoto the gardener decided he wanted to make a game about gardening, and went from there. His idea, his approach, his voice, his game. If the next generation of Nintendo designers can't do tihs themselves, they need to leave.

-Extra life

I have to admit, in my starry-eyed allegiance to Nintendo, it hadn't occured to me that its single greatest asset is shooting the company in the foot. Okay, so in fairness it's not entirely his fault. He's no doubt been understandably instructed to train his successors in the Ways of Greatness. Let's face it, though: only Miyamoto is Miyamoto. (How Zen.) However, if Nintendo ever hopes to expand its market share and stumble across tomorrow's great gaming god, the company must afford its kin a certain degree of creative leeway rather than indoctrinating them. The guy's not going to live forever, and I can see this becoming a huge issue in the future.

Now for act two, wherein a huge logical hole is recognized and exploited.

Finally kids will have an excuse for getting their fingerprints all over the screen

I think it's funny that everyone assumes the only thing that's going to be different about the Nintendo DS is that it's going to have two screens.

Why in the world would Nintendo release something that's going to compete directly with the gameboy (the highest selling system year after year), but only offer a marginal difference? You're probably thinking that it's just because they feel a need to compete with the PSP (and I think to some extent you would be right), but more than that it's got to do with the missing piece of the puzzle.

Examine the following evidence that the Nintendo DS is going to actually be something different than any of the uncreative people that bitch on message boards all day think it's going to be (All from Video-fenky):

Exhibit A:
The successors to the GBA and GameCube are being developed separately from the Nintendo DS This implies much more than simply a powerful gameboy with a second screen.

Exhibit B:
The system itself is is "working" right now, and the controls are both complete and "something you will not have to look down at your hands to use" (both Nintendo PR quotes). So it obviously either has fewer buttons than the GBA or it's a new way of interacting with a video game altogether.

Exhibit C:
Marketing for the DS will be handled separately from their two current systems. Maybe this means it's being marketed more toward adults, or maybe it just means that it's being marketed as a side system that allows you to do things you can't on other systems.

Exhibit D:
"Titles on this device would have to be completely different from current games, so you won't see [Nintendo characters] in the form of simple ports... [These characters] are something only Nintendo has, so we definitely want to use them." Sounds like Metroid with a constant map isn't something that the device can do.

Reading all of these quotes it sounds like there's much more to the DS than a simple second screen. My guess is that there's going to be a new way of interacting with the action on screen.

Here's my hypothesis/dream:

A device that looks just like the GBA SP when closed, but when opened has a screen on the top portion and another screen on the bottom portion, but no buttons at all. The bottom screen would be a touchpad that doubles as a screen.

Check it out:

Think about it? That soccer game Nintendo mentioned would only show the character on the bottom screen but show a pulled out view of the field on the top one. Moving your finger to different sides of the character on the bottom screen would tell him which way to go and where to go to avoid the opponents that are coming in to attack. Tapping the screen could jump, and pressing on a few buttons that show up in the corners could allow you to pass or shoot.

How about an RPG? The top screen could show the overworld map and the battles and the bottom screen could dynamically switch between movement via putting your finger to any side of your character and menu selection with menus that dynamically change.

A device like this also fits nearly everything Nintendo's said about the device so far and in general for the past few years. The device would be perfect as a 3rd tier to Nintendo's current devices. The dual screens would be a necessity rather than a gimmick. You wouldn't have to think about controls. The controls would by nature be more intuitive, simple, and hands on.

While I haven't quite convinced myself that I'm 100% right, I do think that the device will offer something similarly progressive to gaming. A game system that simplifies yet offers new gameplay possibilities.

-Wes

Great point, Wes. Given the evidence, it's not only possible but likely that Nintendo has a more creative and outlandish intent in mind for the DS. In fact, as discussion was underway, this article popped up. And then there was Psiga, telling us all to just shut our type-holes because he already had this thing covered.

In which Psiga continues to dominate

Ooh, a few new quotes I'm unfamiliar with, Wes. It's jarring that so many news sources are only dealing with fragments of information. One site has the english press release, some other site has a representative's statement, another site has another representative's statement... It'll be nice when it starts consolidating.

I'm glad that we won't simply be seeing Mario64 (NOW WITH COIN RADAR!), then. And please do pardon my bias toward them on that. I was taking Nintendo's incessant rumination of Mario titles but-now-in-a-portable-format as a sign of things to come.

I'd not yet heard this quote about not having to look down at hands anymore, either. It never occurred to me as a problem, though... The buttons of previous devices are tactile, so eventually I memorize the controls and just play by touch, not by sight. Don't most people? Wouldn't a tap screen just require players to look at their hands even more? There's no tactile response, so we'd have to keep looking down at the screen in order to figure out where our fingers should be. Plus, most tap screen technologies that I'm aware of only accept one point of input at a time; ergo, no multi-button combinations. They might have a newfound technology that I'm not aware of, though...

Okay, I know that so much of what we're doing here is just conjecture (albeit motivated by Cosner in the name of his journalistic experimentation) -- that's at least why I've gone into diatribes of PR tactics and game mechanics. I know darned well that Nintendo's being vague intentionally, and that I'll find out what this li'l guy looks like a few days before E3. Right now I'm rather enjoying the discourse -- for if I had not partaken in this, then I'd not have realized that high-quality, consumer-level autostereoscopic devices are now economically feasible. I mean, dude.

We'll eventually find out what Nintendo actually has in mind as far as the unique interface goes, but what comes to my mind right away as the best thing to do is -- get this -- eye tracking. Yeah? Theoretically, that would mean no looking at the handsies. Why would I think of something as complex as eye tracking, you ask? Well, you're not asking, so let me be jerk and put words in your mouth...

SuperWes wrote:
Golly, Psiga, what would make you think of something as complex as eye tracking?

I'm very glad you asked, friend.

In order for the evil-eyed 3D autostereoscopic thing to work, each LCD must direct light toward only one eye. To do that, a light-directing lenticular screen must be actively and properly aligned with the eye it's working for. The cheapest way to follow an eye is by reflecting infrared light off of the pupil, and then using a small camera to track the point of light. Accurate eye tracking, honest to god, is just a side benefit of the stereoscopic mechanism. Once again let me say that I don't think Nintendo's planning on making the DS a 3D device; but also lemme restate that I think they're using the DS as an experiment that could dictate what the GBA's successor will do.

While I was at the CES, I saw a splinter company from a nanotechnology firm. They'd done mostly Department of Defense contract work, I was told. Over the past few years, they've been working on a nanotech rendition of display technology. Instead of CRTs projecting radiation at phosphors, or LCDs lighting up crystals, or igniting cells of gas plasma, or whatever, these guys are engineering nanomachines that supposedly vibrate photons at precisely the necessary wavelengths to create color. Today, they only have shitty (and I mean the worst) widescreen LCD and plasma screens available. The rep wasn't even trying to make it seem like what they had was exciting. I asked him point-blank, "What makes you any better than the other guys? These aren't very good displays." He agreed.

He then told me that what makes them special is the back-end of the displays. They have swappable ports in the back. You need DVI inputs? Swap'm in. You need Component inputs? Swap'm in. You need crappy coaxial? Fine, swap'm in. The guy leveled with me and said that the displays were made to show off the ports, and that when the nanotech screens are ready, the poor LCDs will be gone, gone, gone. This first generation was just an experiment to get the engineers ready for the big show. (Incidentally, I asked when the nanotech screens would be released on the market, and the guy insisted that it'd be next year. I don't really believe him.)

I've been following that shit for years, and have actually seen it in action... It... Well, it doesn't work very well with one screen. It cuts the lengthwise resolution in half, brightness and all. But two screens? That's different. If the top screen projected a whole image to the right eye and the bottom screen to the left, then the eyes would cross to produce a perceived 3D image in the center.

If this is true, then it won't be VirtualBoy. It'll be entirely portable, full color, modernly powerful, and 3D without...uh...well, 3D that only makes you look like sort of a tool. When the eyes crossed, one would go up and the other would go down. That's a very unusual thing to see.

I sorta doubt the DS is going to do it. But like I said, I think Nintendo is trying to figure out a way to use two screens for gaming. Maybe the next big GameBoy will do it. When it comes to autostereoscopic presentation, this is honestly the best concept I've heard yet. No loss in percieved resolution or brightness -- none of this wussy striped-column lenticular stuff like Sharp normally does with one screen. And it's perfect for the portable realm, because the screens are small enough to allow the eyes to comfortably converge. You can't do the two-screen thing very easily with larger screens at home. I'm sitting in front of one 24" monitor and most of my field-of-vision is filled. I can't converge on two of these things. But stack two 2x3" wide-aspect LCDs, and you've got yourself some potential.

I honestly like that idea.

However, I did some research into Sharp's stereoscopy method, and it doesn't look like it works in a way that'd facilitate the two-screen 3D effect. It seems to use some sort of LCD occlusion method (I refuse to be bothered to explain that), rather than floating lenticular screens (or that, either). From an engineering perspective, evil-eyed 3D should be possible -- just not with Sharp's technology.

-Psiga

I swear I should just get Psiga to host this column. Psiga, you have covered every possible angle with your intelligent, researched posts leaving me absolutely no room to post any sort of relevant response. Which is why I have no tolerance for this next post of yours.

whos gonna ried my wild hroses???????????

I think I wrote the most on that particular thread, and I can tell you that I probably won't stick around. I just wanted to support The Cosner in this first attempt. He's been nice to me in the past.

-Psiga

Stop with this crazy, crazy talk, Psiga. This column needs you, much like the desert needs the raiOH GOD YOU'RE SHOOTING ME AND TEARING OFF MY FLESH AND DOUSING MY CARCASS WITH QUICKLIME?!?!?!?!?!?!

We're going to party like it's your date of manufacture

There are times when you have to ask inane questions.

...
......

When did keyboards become immune to attacks from water?

-cloud52ab

It's evolution, baby. After thousands of nerds spilled Yoohoo all over the place, the keyboards developed a tolerance. Before you know it they'll be sprouting wings, stealing our girls, and scoring top-40 hits all over the radio.

Seriously, folks, a keyboard is holding me at gunpoint right now.

Closing comments:

First things first. In this maiden voyage, a few thanks are owed: props to the fine folks at Insert Credit for letting me get away with the Web's most despicable column, to IRC's HunterZero for coming up with most of the somber occasions I used in the above images, and to Dan Smith for being my all-around boy.

Moving on, resident genius and technology-guru Eric-Jon came up with a great idea for a topic... that I'm not going to use. Yet. All of this Nintendo talk was excrutiatingly thought-provoking and I just can't have that two columns in a row. Anybody familiar with my style knows that I'm a big fan of nonsense and whimsy, so I instead present the following topic for the next Force Feedback update.

Go, get your post on, do me proud.

-Drew

I loved her so much I still have nightmares.

[01/22/04]

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