Sony: 3D Is a New Creative Medium

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There is no auto-magic about it. Just making your game 3D will not auto-magically make it better. However, just because 3D has some difficulty fully realizing potential today does not make the effort of it worthless(honestly, if everyone thought like even half the opinions you read on these forums, we wouldn't have any technology at all).

In this case they are right. 3D that needs glasses is a technological dead end. Once you have to wear them, you might as well be projecting the images directly into glasses and do away with the TV completely.

The fact is that flat panel TV manufactures have saturated the market and there is practically no growth left in selling them. Pushing 3D solves this problem (marketing 101 - create the need, sell the product) and isn't a new creative medium.

I find it difficult to believe the market is yet saturated; a lot of people still have CRT based televisions, and a lot of people who bought into HDTV early have CRT televisions that are a significant investment that cannot be so easily replaced(I myself am one such). Even so, I think we have to be careful to separate the concept from the implementation in our criticisms.

Yes, it would be nice to have the image directly project from the glasses, however, that may currently still be infeasible without creating a rather heavy and cumbersome headset. The other option is to create a television screen that is capable of creating the parallax images, which is what manufacturers are currently doing. They, just as much as you, want to lose the glasses to open the technology to more people.

Of course, there are other problems that need to be solved with 3D before it can really take off. For one, implementing only parallax is actually insufficient to completely convey the 3D information. What is missing is the plane of focus. It is this missing element that contributes to the problems of headaches and eyestrain that many experience when viewing through current implementations of 3D(basically, the human visual system performs 2 coupled motions to determine distance positioning, parallax shift and plane of focus; reference geometric optics). Current implementations require the human visual system to adjust for parallax without adjust for plane of focus. Only some people can accomplish the necessary defeating of reflexes(the coupled motion) without difficulty.(Note, this is still a significant problem even if the image is projected directly from the glasses.)

Unfortunately, solving this particular part of the problem is elusive. So, current implementations focus on achieving parallax without significantly encumbering the viewer or reducing the clarity of the image(i.e. improving the convergence of the parallax images).

It's a difficult problem, but I see the concept itself as still having potential to enhance the experience, depending on how it is used. Rather than writing it off with petulant criticism, we should find new ways to fully realize the technology(i.e. solve the parallax, plane of focus coupling problem) and use it to create a more expanded experience. This may mean coupling the technology with additional means of interacting with the game world and implementing the game mechanics such to create an experience that is enhanced beyond butt on the couch in a near comatose, vegetative state with the motion of the thumbs being the only sign of life(such an 90s way of playing games).

Yes, the holo-deck would be the ultimate answer(although, some of us will need to increase our level of fitness to fully deal with that), but we are a long ways off from that. Even so, perhaps, people can brainstorm new ideas for actually creating such a thing, real ideas based on real, sound physics, not the typical internet nerd's asinine babbling with the only intent of mocking and ridiculing.

Is it so difficult to believe that the market is saturated? HD TV's are no longer high end products, you might have paid a lot for your CRT, but 40" LCD's are pretty cheap now-a-days and as cost is no longer a barrier to entry most people that want one already have one. Sure there will be the slow trickle of people upgrading over time, but the kind of market expansion that companies like sony have come to rely on is over with the current technology.

I don't doubt that 3D will eventually be a big deal in gaming, but not like this. Parallax barrier or glasses aren't the solution - in a game you want to be able to peek round corners, not have your eyes fooled by what is no more than an optical illusion.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

This 3D media phase is FAIL.
3D movies look like "2D" movies
AND I ALREADY HAVE 2 TVS.
I'm glad I went with xbox.

 

[geizr]

Is it so difficult to believe that the market is saturated? HD TV's are no longer high end products, you might have paid a lot for your CRT, but 40" LCD's are pretty cheap now-a-days and as cost is no longer a barrier to entry most people that want one already have one. Sure there will be the slow trickle of people upgrading over time, but the kind of market expansion that companies like sony have come to rely on is over with the current technology.

I don't doubt that 3D will eventually be a big deal in gaming, but not like this. Parallax barrier or glasses aren't the solution - in a game you want to be able to peek round corners, not have your eyes fooled by what is no more than an optical illusion.

Without seeing some numbers or market statistics, yes, it is difficult to accept entirely. Even 40" LCDs are still expensive(being $1000+) to the average buyer. Only fairly affluent buyers will seek them. That leaves a rather large untapped market remaining(similar to the "casual"/"hardcore" market segmentation). Not to mention, there are going to be many that just don't yet see a need to upgrade, or others, such as myself, that can't replace their initial investment in earlier CRT technology(I've actually looked at new LCDs to replace my current one; it cost roughly $4000, the price I paid originally for my 65" CRT projection TV, and I'm not settling for less than a 65" screen). With such variables hang out there, that is why I'm still skeptical of LCDs reaching market saturation.

As far as wanting to peek around the corner in games, we can't really do that anyway without issues, if I'm understanding the sense in which you mean that. Current games provide a limited field of view compared to the full human visual system, and they provide limited environmental cues compared to reality. These limitations cause errors and inaccuracies in the brain's processing of the environment. So, you try to peek around the corner, and you get shot by something off-screen of which you had no awareness and was not given sufficient cues to have awareness of it.

The current 3D appearance of games is also an illusion and a bad one, one can argue. It uses perspective to create the illusion of depth, but really, it's not much better than the old 2D sprites. Further, this illusion, by itself, can be flawed for creating an accurate sense of distance(look at any Escher drawing to see how perspective can fool you). How many times has a jump, a throw, or any number of other actions been fouled up due to difficulty determining actual distance because the perspective is off. While parallax 3D is not entirely perfect in its current incarnations, it can give additional cues to allow better distance judgement than perspective alone does. Fixing the plane of focus issue in addition would make the distance perception nearly exact.

The only real solution to the desire to "peek around the corner" is the holo-deck, but, that technology, if it is even possible, is a long ways off. I have no knowledge of any significant attempts to create such technology. Maybe, some of the people here can be the first to collaborate in a serious effort toward such an effect. However, even it is likely to have some significant barriers to adoption that will make people scornfully dismiss it without giving real thought to the matter.

I will give you the 3D viewing technology needs further development, but one has to start somewhere. I personally don't feel the situation is as bad as some people make it out to be; I think they are just overreacting. Same as I feel some people are overreacting to a very typical marketing statement from a very typical CEO of a company trying to sell you something. Of course, there are distortions, inaccuracies, and misguided expectations in his statements; that's marketing. One can listen to the sales-pitch and weed out the bullshit without going into a childish tantrum of nerd-rage. One just simply adapts to the reality.