With the massive success of the movie Avatar, television manufacturers are convinced the world is ready for some sweet 3D action in your living room. LG, Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, and Samsung are all gearing up some form of 3D displays. ESPN is going to broadcast the first 3D sports network. Forget HD. The world seems on the verge of a 3D TV revolution.

What does this mean for gaming?

Remember the excitement when you first played Rad Racer on the NES and you put on the 3D glasses. Even though it didn’t really work all that well, you were still awestruck at the possibilities. The idea of 3D gaming has long seemed like the promised land for gamers; that one step closer to the dream of the holodeck.

At first glance, the possibilities seem very intriguing. Imagine playing an FPS where bullets and shrapnel are literally flying at your face or imagine walking through a forest in an RPG and seeing leaves and bugs flying around your head. How much cooler will the wrecks in Burnout look when the debris and sparks are flying at your face? These minor things can go a long way when it comes to immersing you in the game.

My fear is that developers will use this technology like an early 80′s horror movie. “Look! The rake is coming right at my face! Oh no!” Tricks like this get very old, very fast (that is unless you want to play Rake Dodging Simulator 2011). If you have ever watched a bad 3D movie, you know the kind of moments I am talking about; the moments in the movie where the director force feeds the audience 3D instead of letting the story just flow. However, if game developers can get over the desire to create artificial moments and utilize the effects properly, 3D will push gaming to a new level.

How practical is the technology?

At this point, no one has quite figured out how to make 3D work for more than one person without everyone having to wear the dorky 3D glasses. No one looks cool in the 3D glasses. Arthur Fonzarelli could wear a pair of 3D glasses while riding his motorcycle over a pit filled with lava sharks and he wouldn’t look cool. There are prototype sets that work for one person if he/she is sitting in the exact right spot in front of the television. Neither of these feel like the best solution, both feel like serious compromises for the viewing experience. The glasses can cause headaches and migraines. And sitting by yourself in one particular spot doesn’t seem like the future, it seems like time out.

The sets themselves are still very expensive. At the moment, the cheapest 3D television I could find would set you back about $9,000. In scientific terms, that’s a lot of scratch. Technophiles will jump on board quickly, but I can’t imagine mainstream America shelling out big bucks for the units. And without a large enough audience, content producers will be hesitant to create exciting content. Without any content for it, your huge expensive 3D TV becomes a gigantic paperweight.

Gaming companies will most likely hold off on creating 3D content until there are more households with 3D sets. Making games is already expensive and risky. A couple of companies will probably produce content and make a killing, but for the vast majority of companies there won’t be a large enough market for some time. The future looks to be in three dimensions, but for now we just have to wait.

After the rough year electronics manufacturers have had, it is easy to understand why they are pushing the next big thing. Unfortunately, at this point the technology simply isn’t there.

Tags: 3D, Editorials, HDTV, Predictions, technology, tv

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.