Official E3 Nintendo Conference Thread 2010

The real problem is doing 3D with poor 3D HW. Something like an iPhone 4 / iPad has a 1 Ghz ARM8 with PowerVR GPU on a nice hi-res display, the current DS is what, 67Mhz, point sampling only, 6k vertices/sec? Has the 3DS got an upgrade to its basic HW to a modern ARM/GPU combo? There were rumors of Tegra, did that pan out?
There is no word yet on the actual hardware its running, but its obvious it's able to do some effects easily that GameCube/Wii couldn't. Draw distance is quite huge, that's for sure, so I'm guessing something that features a modern feature set as I don't think Hollywood/Flipper variants don't pull effects like that quite easily.
3DS_MGS3D_02ss02_E3.png

3DS_Starfox64_02ss02_E3.png

One question. How does 3D work on the 3DS?
Parallax-barrier screen?
 
If you just don't count stuff you don't want to play, then nintendo announced no new games, since I don't feel that any of them are for me. We're at the point now where the only thing the wii gets used for is Wii fit and youtube videos, and lately not even the youtube. If I buy "Your Shape", I can probably recycle the wii to someone else and never even miss it.

Not for you specifically, but for the same demographic. I don't like Nintendo games, as a rule (again, I do like Kirby) but all these games are targeted at gamers. Back to the double-standard issue, was anyone defending Nintendo in 2008 when all they announced for the holidays was Animal Crossing Wii and Wii Music, with Ravi Drums playing? I'm pretty sure I didn't see anyone currently defending MS defending those titles. Maybe fearsomepirate did, but I think most of us knew that a presentation that bad was indefensible.

Edit: Watched the Kirby trailer again, I can't get over how good that looks.
 
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Even if you want to downplay FPS on the iPhone (I personally think FPS sucks on *EVERY* platform except desktop. The mouse is the ideal control for FPS), your criteria were big studio games that last longer than 5 minutes. You chose to ignore my whole list. Surely, you won't complain about Civilization Revolution (available for iPhone AND DS), or RTS games, where touch interface is ideal. It's no accident that the iPhone has huge number of real time strategy games. Many of the sports titles work very well on the iPhone.

And then there is Rolando, IMHO, should be mobile GOTY.

How about Final Fantasy Tactics?

You are in serious denial if you think whats going on is on any way comparable to J2ME, iMode/DoCoMo crap, NGAGE, etc. The iPhone HW is a step-function ahead of those platforms, and the reality is, not many people want to carry around a bunch of devices when one device can make calls, browse the internet *very well*, has a non-sucky camera and screen, contains all of your media, can give you driving directions, Google search, Email, twitter, Facebook, and has an awesome library of apps and games.

About the only thing those crappy Japanese phones have is TV/FM tuners. You do realize that 10 years have gone by, and today's 2010 KDDI/DoCoMo/etc Japanese smart phones are blown away by the latest US/European/Chinese/Korean models?
 
One question. How does 3D work on the 3DS?
Explained before, but some pics should help too:

Parallax.gif


lenticular.gif


I think this year Nintendo stole the show with the announcement of the 3DS and a less boring conference in general.
 
Both of these solutions make me shudder. Remember back*when LCD and Rear Projection displays had severe off-axis viewing angle problems? We've finally conquered those issues, and now we're reintroducing technology that seems to require severe axis constraints. I guess it's ok for hand-helds with tiny screens.

It seems the only real way to solve these problems is with eye tracking, but then you've got the problem of multiple viewers.

3D seems like a gimmick to me. I haven't seen a single 3D movie, even Avatar, that I really felt wouldn't have been just as good in 2D.

IMHO, Augmented Reality seems to have more potential. Project the 2D image in my 3D real world view.
 
seen a single 3D movie, even Avatar, that I really felt wouldn't have been just as good in 2D.
Regardless the 3D effect could be adjusted on the 3DS and is optional. I think the main draw is the higher storage capacity (2GB initially), anti-piracy measures (which haven't been revealed obviously), and increased graphical horsepower. Then there's that Wi-Fi option that will connect even when playing some other game and also when turned off. I was hoping they would announce something like a Kindle 3G solution or something.
 
Anti-piracy/DRM features are not a selling point for consumers. They don't add anything, they just restrict consumer's freedom to use their device as they see fit.
 
Anti-piracy/DRM features are not a selling point for consumers. They don't add anything, they just restrict consumer's freedom to use their device as they see fit.
And I don't think they would announce anything regarding that information (since it would only help piraters), but it seems the new 3DS constantly updates itself even while playing a game and while turned off, potentially automatically updating firmware?

It also seems that the Resident Evil Revelations demo was also done in real-time perhaps with a few jaggies.
3DS_ResidentER_05ss05_E3.png
 
Adding in an analog nub unlocks 4 more buttons (the dpad) for additional controls, along side the touch screen. I am really struggling to see how it's a step backward. It does nothing but open up the target audience for the 3DS.
DS got where it did because of its games, which were differentiated because of the touch screen. That touch-screen was fairly rubbish for things like driving or piloting a ship, but that wasn't the design of DS. It provided an intuitive interface that didn't need thumb-skills to enable gameplay. Inclusion of a nub now means DS is better able to support conventional games, but that seems to go against the methods of the device.

However, I see my remark was wrong. DS set up the platform, but to stay competitive they do need to broaden its applications. Just like PS360 adding move, Nintendo is doing the same but in reverse, retrofitting their 'casual' platform to provide more input methods and appeal to a wider audience; something for everyone.
 
OK I pretty much trust Granmaster's opinion I guess I'll have to see the thing for myself if the effect is as stunning as he said.
On the other hand if the effect is so stunning it's likely to be copied soon especially as movies playback is touted as great. So there may be choice sooner than later.
Eurogamer (Still haven't read other hand-on) makes clearer that graphic are on ps2 level while outputting twice as much frames, so depending on price and launch date it will be tough for SOny to sell PSPs. I can't help but feel like a psp2 would be more "my stuffs".
But whereas the conf was boring (rythm, problem, some arrogance, etc.) it looks like Nintendo made it again and set another standard.
I don't know if I would say that they won the show as for "child of eden" is pretty much a proof of concept that you could quiet interesting stuff on Kinect. Whether it will sell or not is another issue. The 3DS will even if handled are a dying species they have some more years to shine I guess
I think the PSP2 should be a gaming oriented smart-phone but that just me. Sony has the opportunity to set some standard for gaming and extend PSN reach. I wonder what people are thinking at Sony Erickson...
 
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Both of these solutions make me shudder. Remember back*when LCD and Rear Projection displays had severe off-axis viewing angle problems? We've finally conquered those issues, and now we're reintroducing technology that seems to require severe axis constraints. I guess it's ok for hand-helds with tiny screens.
It's a bit worse than that actually, not only do you have an axis constraint, but a distance constraint, since distance affects the angle of which light reaches your eyes from the screen. That said, the solution is simply not to move the screen much in z which I doubt people do anyway, but if the system is too sensitive, this could cause some strain.

It seems the only real way to solve these problems is with eye tracking, but then you've got the problem of multiple viewers.
Without glasses, I'm not aware of any stereoscopic technology that works for multiple viewers. I doubt space projecting technologies will be commercialized in my life time, if ever.

3D seems like a gimmick to me. I haven't seen a single 3D movie, even Avatar, that I really felt wouldn't have been just as good in 2D.
Of course you haven't - movies are about storytelling, and a story is just as good in braille as in type, but no better. However, lets also be honest here. The world is in 3D. And just as when we moved from silent to sound and from B&W to colour, 2D to 3D potentially provides a more realistic window into another reality. It is simply the next logical step along a well worn path. A step with problems, so we'll see just how much of an impact this round of 3D-tech will have. But you have to acknowledge that using your reasoning, colour movies are just a gimmick as well.

For games, the reasoning gets slightly deeper - if 3D impacts the game mechanics, it is obviously relevant. If 3D doesn't impact game mechanics, then we still have the immersion/window into another reality argument, but that has to be weighed against rendering quality. Does 3D provide a higher level of immersion than a doubling of resolution or framerate would have done? Quite possibly so, unless plagued by artifacts, of which there is likely to be plenty with this first generation product so being able to turn 3D off seems like a prudent move on Nintendos part.

But that's all technology - does it make sense from a business point of view? Well, it works on me. I would have very little interest in a new DS where the only novelty was a 800x240 upper screen and a bit more graphics power. I'm sufficiently curious about the 3D technology on offer that I will definitely seek it out and have a look, and quite possibly buy one just to be able to tinker with it at my own leisure.
IMHO, Augmented Reality seems to have more potential. Project the 2D image in my 3D real world view.
Well, no argument really, but it is a different problem.
 
DS got where it did because of its games, which were differentiated because of the touch screen.

The touch screen was incidental; early on people used the touch screen as the main input method and these games sucked. It took a while for people to realize that the buttons still had a lot of value.
 
The touch screen was incidental; early on people used the touch screen as the main input method and these games sucked. It took a while for people to realize that the buttons still had a lot of value.
The sticking point for me was that I needed to hold the DS with one hand whenever I used the touch screen, and that just doesn't work for more than a few minutes at a time. I've come to avoid DS games that make prolonged touch screen use mandatory.

I've seen people put their DSes down on a table or on a leg, but "clawing" the face buttons with middle/index fingers always seemed awkward to me. I'm all about thumbs.
 
DS got where it did because of its games, which were differentiated because of the touch screen. That touch-screen was fairly rubbish for things like driving or piloting a ship, but that wasn't the design of DS. It provided an intuitive interface that didn't need thumb-skills to enable gameplay. Inclusion of a nub now means DS is better able to support conventional games, but that seems to go against the methods of the device.

However, I see my remark was wrong. DS set up the platform, but to stay competitive they do need to broaden its applications. Just like PS360 adding move, Nintendo is doing the same but in reverse, retrofitting their 'casual' platform to provide more input methods and appeal to a wider audience; something for everyone.

It's those Nintendo franchises which sell whatever platform they put out. They propped up the GC and then the novelty of the Wii made them huge.

Mario, Zelda, etc. are like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc., characters introduced to new generations of children over and over again.

Whatever the merits of the 3DS, if they didn't put out games featuring these characters on the new system, it would stall.

But once these children grow up, they're going to carry phones and only phones on a daily basis. They will steal a few minutes to play games on these phones while buying new Nintendo handhelds for their own children.

Nintendo can co-exist with iPhone or whatever other smart phone gaming platform indefinitely. But I don't think it can eliminate them from the market, at least the market of adults who want to play some games on the go.
 
The real problem is doing 3D with poor 3D HW. Something like an iPhone 4 / iPad has a 1 Ghz ARM8 with PowerVR GPU on a nice hi-res display, the current DS is what, 67Mhz, point sampling only, 6k vertices/sec? Has the 3DS got an upgrade to its basic HW to a modern ARM/GPU combo? There were rumors of Tegra, did that pan out?

Apparently some devs have made quite clear it's not Tegra in there, but I sadly don't have source for this
 
Oh my, Epic Mickey looks amazing, and a pretty interesting game on top of it, too. Finally we see another studio pushing the Wii hardware.
 
Oh my, Epic Mickey looks amazing, and a pretty interesting game on top of it, too. Finally we see another studio pushing the Wii hardware.

Yeah, push hardware or no, the graphics are very nice in places (I don't like everything, but the transition level that takes place in the black and white art of the first mickey mouse cartoon is pure genius).

However, best graphics on Wii award so far goes to Kirby: Epic Yarn. I'm going to make a separate thread for it, it's just amazing on so many levels. Pure genius. I may borrow a Wii just to be able to play this.
 
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