craylon wrote:
I believe that if its done right it can have something id call the Wii-factor
The novelty effect is what brought entire families to play the first 8 bit consoles, and then gave us the revival of non-gamers returning to videogames with the Wii.
The fad faded away once, and there are signs it's happening again with the Wii.
People move on.
Now, the awe created by stereoscopy in a confined (and not that big) screen is even more short-lived. The next step could be a total immersion, but we are far removed from that. (One of the most important intrinsic issues is that objects are tinier than their real life counterparts).
Many gamers already tried some form of stereoscopy and consider it a meh experience.
Yesterday I talked with a guy who is a comupter salesclerk in a big store, he is far from impressed by S3D, his words about the Nvidia+120Hz monitor solution were: "Yes, we
had them in stock".
Not only, as a fad, S3D is meant to be more short-lived and capturing less people, it requires expensive and often unpractical add-ons.
Now, while PCs today have GPU capability in excess, so that we can put it to good use with S3D, the PS3 is already old hardware: if the tradeoffs for a better visual experience (with S3D) are disabling some visual effects and toning down graphics (to cope with limited GPU resources), even less people are going to be impressed. You can be willing to lose some eye candy to get a new motion control system and an emphasis on playability and fun, and that's the Wii.
But who's going to forfeit "realistic" graphics only to get a different eye candy effect?
I'm not saying S3D is a fad
per se.
If it's done wrong, after the initial Aahhs and Ooohhhs, people lose interest in it very rapidly. In fact, for most it's a matter of minutes, not days.
If done right, even after you get used to it, you don't want to get back to flat images. That's where we must be heading. And it means
no headaches, no driver issues and glitches, no graphic compromises like disabling effects, a reasonably priced, comfortable hw solution.
The goal must be: I get a game, I install it, put a pair of polarized glasses on and play. If I am not allowed to
forget about batteries, settings, disappearing shadows, crashes, or deciding
what to lose graphically, eventually I (gamer) will return to 2D.