Meant to be Seen

Do all games released in S-3D really help S-3D, or should we have higher standards?

Are game developers shooting themselves in the foot if they publicly choose only one stereoscopic 3D solution, when their games are in fact compatible with several?

Regards,
Neil

I think the more 3D thats out there the better. If it has to be anaglyph, then so be it. What choice to they really have? I mean there may be like 4% of HD screens that have 3D-Ready capabilities, but how many of those homes have the glasses? If you are looking at it like a business, do you support 1% of customers or 99% of customers? Pretty easy decision there if you follow the money. So I don't blame these companies for only supporting anaglyph at this point in time. Ideally, we should have higher standards. But at the same time we should be happy that there is any interest in creating native stereo in games. The more developers that jump on this now, the more experience they will have for when the market is really ready.

I understand what Neil is getting at. But I also think anaglyph needs to be there to support 99% of the solutions out there. I think current games should have support for both. So people with S-3D solutions can finally enjoy new content and also people without can use the old anaglyph method. After all companies are after sales, why release something if you don't have a large target audience.

It should also advertised for both. I understand these studios wanting to remain neutral with solutions. However they should at least advertise that games are compatible with many stereoscopic solutions as well as red/blue anaglyph. People need to be educated that there is something better out there to fuel the industry. I agree with Neil, advertising 3D as a gimmick doesn't bode well for the industry in the log run.

Yes! This is it exactly. Anaglyph should be framed as the taste, not the meal...even if a small number of people can get to the restaurant right now.

Regards,
Neil

Really this comes down to standards, and/or the lack there-of. From the looks of it the most popular models of 3D-Ready HDTVs are the Mitsubishis and the Samsungs. Both work via checkerboarding and mainly at 1080P (except for a couple of Samsung 720P models). So are we accepting 1080P checkerboard as the new standard? I think thats perfectly acceptable, but we should be clear that is what we are talking about. There really aren't any other options outside the PC space. If we are talking about the mainstream living room setting (ie HDTVs, consoles, etc.) then there are only really two choices: anaglyph or checkerboard.

Plus, there are other issues to think about on the development end. If you need to support checkerboard at means you need a full 1080P render and 2 frames at that. Most console games do not render at the full 1080P. The most successful console right now, the Wii, can't even output that resolution even if they wanted. Even some popular "next-gen" games like Halo3 could only muster 640P in order to keep performance up. So if these games are having trouble reaching 720P in 2D, they would have to make significant sacrifice to run at 1080P in 3D. It can be done, sure, but it adds unnecessary burden to cater to 1% of the market without any financial incentives. But then this gets into the whole chicken and the egg conundrum: content creators won't bother adding support for a small niche market and people won't buy the 3DTVs unless there is content. I have no answer to this. But the issue is more complex then the initial editorial makes it out to be.

What's the difference between a 2D game and a 3D game? I've never understood that