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[Mr. B Natural]

The 1950's called, they want their history-repeats-itself back.

 

[Izayoi]

Later, after the 3DS has picked back up:

"EA has a strong interest in 3D Gaming"

 

[Zomba13]

kinda hard to convince people in this economy to ditch their perfectly good hdtv's and switch to a 3d tv.

Completely agree. I mean a lot of people haven't had their HDTVs long and upgrading again so soon is a bit silly.

 

[Yoshiya]

Less 3d, more iOS

Pretty much.

I would argue that one of the least interesting things about the games industry was that every 5 years you’d see a new console or platform from everybody at about the same time with about the same or similar upgrades or services. You’d sort of harvest it and then it’d cycle back. We got used to it. It’s what seemed normal. But it’s not a particularly smart way to run an industry... bulges in technology investment followed by harvest. And let’s be realistic. Consoles used to be 80% of the industry as recently as 2000. Consoles today are 40% of the game industry, so what do we really have?

We have a new hardware platform and we’re putting out software every 90 days. Our fastest growing platform is the iPad right now and that didn’t exist 18 months ago. So the idea that we’re categorizing the industry as being [cyclical]... Nintendo is off cycle with what? I mean, the point of reference is gone.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-ceo-consoles-now-only-40-of-games-industry/

 

[Myansie]

For that, I'll turn it over to Walter Murch, who if you don't know him already you should check his IMDB credits, books, and other writings.

Now, Walter Murch's statement on why 3D will never work.

If you like 3D, great. But don't pretend that it gives the advantage of approximating reality. Not even close.

Walter Murch the sound guy? Yeah I've heard of him and I've read that article. Some even more technical savvie people, who are brilliant visualists that disagree with him, are James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson and Michael Bay. I've also read articles explaining why this theory is wrong, unfortunately I can't find any links, but I can remember the general gist.

3D does have a learning curve. You don't instantly look at 3D and understand how to look at it. Nor do film makers instantly know how to shoot it. You need to learn it, it has a vocabulary on top of what we've already learned with 2D. This evolution argument is wrong because our brains are smart enough to learn how to focus independently of our convergence angle. I remember for the first few 3D movies I saw there was an adjustment period at the beginning of 15 to 20 mins. With each film and the extra practice that time grew shorter. Now I'm as comfortable watching 3D as 2D.

My best advice to those who aren't comfortable with 3D is to relax and watch more. For me it was easy, but I can understand some people will find it harder to adjust. You do get used to it and when you do it's awesome.

 

[LowEndTorque]

You can buy a high quality 42" Panasonic 3D plasma for less than $800 nowadays.

3d isn't going anywhere. It's now at a point where it's affordable to the mass market and it won't be long before 3D is a standard feature on all televisions.

Nobody is going to force you to use it if you don't like it, (and on top of that I think 3d tech ended up helping improve 2D picture quality in some ways) so I don't get why some people have such a fierce hatred of it. But it isn't going anywhere, sorry haters.

 

[Electivirus]

Did people react this violently to motion controls before they became the norm?

 

[StuBurns]

3D is all doom and gloom right now because there hasn't been a decent 3D film since Avatar, but Tintin will do well in 3D, and the 3DS is doing crap, but the software is shit, it'll pick up when they deliver compelling content.

I think 3D will be a big part of next-gen, right now it's too early, the consoles are pitiful in terms of performance as it is, 3D is asking too much.

 

[B-Dex]

did EA even make any 3D games?

 

[Grinchy]

I would love a 3DTV, despite the fact that forum members have jumped on the anti-3D bandwagon. It's like the extra dimension killed everyone's parents or something.

 

[SkyMasterson]

I'm fine with this for now.

I actually enjoy 3D, but don't have a 3DTV yet, same with millions of other people.

Wait a few more years when 3D is integrated into every HDTV, then come back to it.

Mirrors Edge 2 in 3D!

 

[Chinner]

you can pretty much predict the same response with their attempt at pc gaming.

 

[Freezie KO]

3D does have a learning curve. You don't instantly look at 3D and understand how to look at it. Nor do film makers instantly know how to shoot it. You need to learn it, it has a vocabulary on top of what we've already learned with 2D. This evolution argument is wrong because our brains are smart enough to learn how to focus independently of our convergence angle. I remember for the first few 3D movies I saw there was an adjustment period at the beginning of 15 to 20 mins. With each film and the extra practice that time grew shorter. Now I'm as comfortable watching 3D as 2D.

My best advice to those who aren't comfortable with 3D is to relax and watch more. For me it was easy, but I can understand some people will find it harder to adjust. You do get used to it and when you do it's awesome.

People have been watching and rejecting 3D for SIXTY years. It's not a learning curve. Trusting Michael Bay, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron for their opinion on 3D is like asking a tobacco company exec whether or not cigarettes are bad for you.

If you enjoy 3D, great. Some people like cherry bubble gum. Some people like grape bubble gum. Some people like shooting nailguns through their dicks.

But it does not offer "real life" benefits. This idea that 3D visuals are analogous to living in three dimensions is ludicrous. Playing NBA Jam in 3D isn't going to give you the same depth perception as playing basketball.

 

[Mailenstein]

Great. Concentrate on content, not on 3D.

 

[[Nintex]]

I'm pretty shocked at how fast John has thrown Nintendo under the bus after his pro-Nintendo E3 speech. I don't have the exact quote but I listened to this conference call and he also said something about the 3DS causing headaches and whatnot.

 

[Jocchan]

So many people around here seem to be confusing "3D" with "current implementations of 3D".

Did people react this violently to motion controls before they became the norm?

Even worse.

 

[Mr_Zombie]

When you can't afford it, you need to believe it sucks.

When you spend money on a 3D TV and a pair of 3D glasses you need to convince yourself that the thing doesn't really suck. See? I can do bullshit arguments too.

It's a nice but completely meaningless feature; it doesn't add anything to the experience - I've seen several movies and played several games in 3D, and while it is a cool feature for the first several times, after a while you just stop noticing the difference (at least that's what happened in my case). However, you do not stop noticing annoying glasses that you have to wear; you do not stop noticing that you have to look at the screen in certain way (from a certain angle); you do not stop noticing the headache and eyes strains. Thank you, I'll pass.

Also, nowadays neither the home consoles nor 3DS are good enough for a proper 3D. When you have to trade rendering resolution, fps or image quality for a 3D mode, you should realize that there's something wrong with it.

 

[Myansie]

People have been watching and rejecting 3D for SIXTY years. It's not a learning curve. Trusting Michael Bay, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron for their opinion on 3D is like asking a tobacco company exec whether or not cigarettes are bad for you.

I don't always agree with these directors, but I do respect their opinion.

 

[StuBurns]

I think 3D adds a lot. For me it's a more pronounced impact than HD or surround sound. Not so much on the 3DS, but on a TV.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Did people react this violently to motion controls before they became the norm?

Even worse.

And where is motion control today? Swiftly returning to the casual ghetto where it belongs, despite all three manufacturers jumping on it.

Adding a dash of spice to some Wii games outside of the Wii X family, confined to a handful of Xbox games of which two or three sold big, and largely irrelevant on the PS3. And the Wii U knows it, too.

Meanwhile, the mouse and KB keep on truckin', managing to power Starcraft 2, Portal 2, Farmville AND this web browser. Maybe motion controls will deliver more than 1/4 of this pie sometime.

Not everything is the wave of the future.

 

[ymmv]

Here's my simple opinion. SDTV's were standard tech for like 50 years. Sure color TV's came around, but the price difference wasn't that huge. Then HDTV's came around. The problem at first was they were too expensive and not enough HD content. Today it's totally different. Games are HD, everything on TV is HD and it's affordable. You aren't going to convince someone like my dad who replaced his 25-year-old big screen tv a few years ago with a 60-inch plasma that now, three years later, he needs to buy another TV that costs twice as much as his current TV because of 3D. In five years when prices have fallen and everything is in 3D maybe (glasses are still an issue), but right now it's akin to the laser disc. I remember when VHS players cost like $600. Anyone who bought one wasn't going to turn around two years later and buy a $2,000 laser disc player.

HD was an easy upgrade because there's an almost unlimited amount of content made in HD. Every single movie from 1910 onwards is HD suitable, because it was captured on film with a higher resolution than SDTV. The biggest problem with HDTV were the upgrade costs, but not the content since there's 90 years of Hollywood/TV history ready to be watched in HD (with the exception of tv content that was filmed on video).

On the other hand, there's very little content readily available in 3D. You've got a limited number of CGI movies, a bunch of action movies, a couple of documentaries and other random stuff and that's it. I think games are the best reason to own a 3D TV because once you go through the limited number of 3D movies available on Blu-Ray, what else are you going to with your brandnew 3D TV?

3D is a nice addon, it's a cool show off feature but it will take years before it's suitable for everyone because it needs content desperately and that will take a long, long time.

 

[Freezie KO]

So many people around here seem to be confusing "3D" with "current implementations of 3D".

3D has been around for sixty years. PM me when we're allowed to criticize it.

Maybe some things are just bad.

 

[LemonGremlin]

3d is practically free to implement in tv's. It's just 120hz and some method of synching. Glasses are the problem, but they will improve with time.

I play games in 3d on my home theatre projector, and it is incredibly immersive. I can't wait to play Deus Ex 3 and Ico/SOTC on it. I don't consider the tech to be essential, but it does add a lot, playing without 3d is like switching dynamic lighting off or something for me. When a game like Tomb Raider is giving me extremely vivid vertigo, you know it's adding something tangiable to the experience.

 

[Cygnus X-1]

It's amazing how fast 3D came and how fast is dying. Avatar seemed to be the beginning of massive turnaround in the movie industry. Amazingly, people are tired of that already.

 

[SappYoda]

Pretty much.

I would argue that one of the least interesting things about the games industry was that every 5 years you’d see a new console or platform from everybody at about the same time with about the same or similar upgrades or services. You’d sort of harvest it and then it’d cycle back. We got used to it. It’s what seemed normal. But it’s not a particularly smart way to run an industry... bulges in technology investment followed by harvest. And let’s be realistic. Consoles used to be 80% of the industry as recently as 2000. Consoles today are 40% of the game industry, so what do we really have?

We have a new hardware platform and we’re putting out software every 90 days. Our fastest growing platform is the iPad right now and that didn’t exist 18 months ago. So the idea that we’re categorizing the industry as being [cyclical]... Nintendo is off cycle with what? I mean, the point of reference is gone.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-ceo-consoles-now-only-40-of-games-industry/

So, after many years of PC is doomed, now consoles are doomed? really?

 

[Lunchbox]

so glad this fad is dying

focus on giving me crisp high resolutions and a solid framerate and leave the 3d shit behind

 

[Seep]

Good news, 3D does not interest me in the slightest.

 

[Sennorin]

HD is an advancement. In fact, "HD" is meaningless. It's just another bump in screen resolution, which has already been going on throughout gaming history. It's very obvious what that adds to the experience, even if that is just clarity of what you are seeing.

3D is not an advancement. It's a change. It's different, but different is not necessarily better. Some people like it better. Some people like it worse. But it's not inherently better.

All visual options are not created equal.

Of course, 3D is an advancement, just like HD. But if I had to choose, I´d always choose 3D over HD. Because the former is not *only* an advancement, it´s also a change.

 

[FieryBalrog]

So, after many years of PC is doomed, now consoles are doomed? really?

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/05/26/chris-taylor-on-why-pc-gaming-is-bigger-than-ever/

I think PC gaming went from a “Huh, is there a problem here?” To “Oh, not only is there not a problem, but PC gaming is bigger than ever.” It just had to go through a little bit of a reinvention.

The piracy problem is gonna be all but solved as we emerge here, and I think the new question is – which I love – is “What’s the future of console gaming?”

And I used to joke about that last year, when people were interviewing me. Off the record, I was going “You know, they should really be asking about the future of console gaming.”

Now people are. This question is starting to come up. And I was like “Ah, I don’t know – but that’s your problem. Don’t look at me.”

 

[StuBurns]

3D has been around for sixty years. PM me when we're allowed to criticize it.

Maybe some things are just bad.

While true, 3D before digital per pixel accurate projection is meaningless. It's so radically different it's barely comparable.

Although I don't think it's too early to criticize modern 3D personally.

 

[Jocchan]

And where is motion control today? Swiftly returning to the casual ghetto where it belongs, despite all three manufacturers jumping on it.

Adding a dash of spice to some Wii games outside of the Wii X family, confined to a handful of Xbox games of which two or three sold big, and largely irrelevant on the PS3. And the Wii U knows it, too.

Meanwhile, the mouse and KB keep on truckin', managing to power Starcraft 2, Portal 2, Farmville AND this web browser. Maybe motion controls will deliver more than 1/4 of this pie sometime.

Not everything is the wave of the future.

Blaming motion controls for the way they were criminally underused is wrong, and I hope we both know it. The matter is much more complex.

3D has been around for sixty years. PM me when we're allowed to criticize it.

Maybe some things are just bad.

I absolutely disagree. To me, 3D can add quite a bit to the overall experience. We have technology limitations (glasses, fixed angles), and we have content creators who want to "wow" people and fill their stuff with all sorts of shit popping up around you and distracting you from the actual content, but we also have some decent applications (curiously, in gaming) that show promise for when the technology will be ready to deliver that sufficiently well (because it's currently not).

 

[Cygnus X-1]

Good.

3D doesn't add anything meaningful to games.

I strongly disagree. Ocarina of Time 3D added an incredible realism to the original game. Yeah, it was that better. Obviously 3D on TV needed glasses, heavy investments from the very beginning and there were few movies and few games.

Failure of that 3D is thus no surprise.

No so sure about 3DS though. I'm still convinced the potential to be a mass market device is there and yes: 3D can matter on that handheld. The fact that no other games like OoT take advantage of it or that the machine had terrible advertising, etc is another story. 3D is obviously useless as long as there are no games that are built up around that concept.
Exactly like the analog joystick would have been useless with 2D only games. Or like on motion-sensing controllers as long as one keeps making games based only on the buttons.
You ignore a capability and thus obviously is not going to matter to anyone!

Remember: even the touch screen on DS was claimed to be completely useless at first. Till games like Brain training.

Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3DLand are the first big, new games that use 3D heavily. Let's thus see the results! If these games fail, well then I suppose that 3D indeed was useless.

 

[Zomba13]

People have been watching and rejecting 3D for SIXTY years. It's not a learning curve. Trusting Michael Bay, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron for their opinion on 3D is like asking a tobacco company exec whether or not cigarettes are bad for you.

If you enjoy 3D, great. Some people like cherry bubble gum. Some people like grape bubble gum. Some people like shooting nailguns through their dicks.

But it does not offer "real life" benefits. This idea that 3D visuals are analogous to living in three dimensions is ludicrous. Playing NBA Jam in 3D isn't going to give you the same depth perception as playing basketball.

Can't really compare modern 3D to the anaglyph stuff. It's like comparing black and white movies to HD full colour ones.

And no, it's not going to give you as much as real life, but it'll damn well give you more than without.
(just got done with playing some Dirt 3 in 3D. I kinda like console ports as it means I can run them at max setings in 3D and still get 60 FPS )

 

[Shiggy]

Today's EA is known for following trends (Rock Band) and failing with original ideas (EA Partners, Boom Blox).

 

[Jocchan]

If these games fail, well then I suppose that 3D indeed was useless.

One single game looking improved with 3D is proof enough that 3D is not useless. Ocarina of Time looks much better to me in 3D than in 2D mode despite the latter having added AA improving the overall IQ.

Can't really compare modern 3D to the anaglyph stuff. It's like comparing black and white movies to HD full colour ones.

And no, it's not going to give you as much as real life, but it'll damn well give you more than without.
(just got done with playing some Dirt 3 in 3D. I kinda like console ports as it means I can run them at max setings in 3D and still get 60 FPS )

The issue in that post is not really the comparison between modern 3D and anaglyph 3D. They're just different technologies aiming to achieve the same result (3D).
The issue is considering anything that doesn't work exactly like real life automatically worthless. By that reasoning, we shouldn't bother to play a videogame ever again as they all would be.

 

[test_account]

How many EA games supports 3D? The only one i can think about is Sims 3 for 3DS.

 

[Zomba13]

so glad this fad is dying

focus on giving me crisp high resolutions and a solid framerate and leave the 3d shit behind

I've never quite understood the people who want that stuff but don't use a PC. I mean, I get all of that. At once. (and the 3D is 100% optional and doesn't cost the devs much/any effort)
And, of course, if you do have a game PC then fair enough, but you shouldn't complain about wanting stuff you've already got.

How many EA games supports 3D? The only one i can think about is Sims 3 for 3DS.

Console wise at least Crysis 2. PC wise? Pretty much all of them. Or should I say pretty much all of them are able to. A few are/were properly supported (as in a selling point/feature by EA) like BFBC2 and Crysis 2.

 

[LeleSocho]

Good. 3D sucks and needs to go die in a chemical fire.

First post nails it.

 

[sinxtanx]

Yes, 3D gives a certain percentage of people headaches, so naturally these people don't want 3D.
But for people who do enjoy it and have no problem with it, it should be there.
Removing it would be like removing the controller because somebody doesn't have hands(exaggerated analogue).

 

[StuBurns]

How many EA games supports 3D? The only one i can think about is Sims 3 for 3DS.

Crysis 2 does.

EDIT: Beaten, hot damn.

 

[FieryBalrog]

I've never quite understood the people who want that stuff but don't use a PC. I mean, I get all of that. At once. (and the 3D is 100% optional and doesn't cost the devs much/any effort)
And, of course, if you do have a game PC then fair enough, but you shouldn't complain about wanting stuff you've already got.

THere are quite a few poorly optimized PC games that either have sub-par framerates, or input lag, and so on.

I think "rock solid framerates and response times" is a much cooler fad for the industry than "3D!"

 

[Jocchan]

Yes, 3D gives a certain percentage of people headaches, so naturally these people don't want 3D.
But for people who do enjoy it and have no problem with it, it should be there.
Removing it would be like removing the controller because somebody doesn't have hands(exaggerated analogue).

A better example would be saying color is overrated because some people are colorblind (which sucks, but doesn't make color any less important).

THere are quite a few poorly optimized PC games that either have sub-par framerates, or input lag, and so on.

I think "rock solid framerates and response times" is a much cooler fad for the industry than "3D!"

Too bad those don't translate into sales, while "more whizz and bang and sparks on screen" does, leading us to the current issues we are lamenting.

 

[FieryBalrog]

A better example would be saying color is overrated because some people are colorblind (which sucks, but doesn't make color any less important).

I can see 3d images. Its not even remotely as important an advance as color images.

Well as it currently stands it isn't an advance at all, more of a sidegrade.

 

[HocusPocus]

It's hard to believe between the 3 but Microsoft really knew what they were doing with their pet project (LIVE) while Sony and Nintendo have failed miserably to date with their pet projects (3D).

 

[StuBurns]

A better example would be saying color is overrated because some people are colorblind (which sucks, but doesn't make color any less important).

Very few people are monochromatic though.

Sound is a good one I think. Deaf people can't appreciate the sound of games, it doesn't mean games should be mute.

The differences comes with the amount of people though. Right now a tiny amount of people are playing games in 3D, if that number is less than the effort put into making 3D games, they aren't viable, so publishers shouldn't bother.

 

[Freezie KO]

I absolutely disagree. To me, 3D can add quite a bit to the overall experience. We have technology limitations (glasses, fixed angles), and we have content creators who want to "wow" people and fill their stuff with all sorts of shit popping up around you and distracting you from the actual content, but we also have some decent applications (curiously, in gaming) that show promise for when the technology will be ready to deliver that sufficiently well (because it's currently not).

It's cool if you like it. I've never had problems with anyone liking 3D. I'm mostly addressing this statement that all the current ills fall on 3D's current implementation. There are inherent problems with the delivery system as well as the actual quality of being faux-three-dimensional.

For me, it's never added to any experience; film, gaming, pop-up book, or otherwise. Of course, full virtual reality headsets could come on, and those could be amazing. If you want to call those a later implementation of 3D, well, okay I guess. I reserve the right to be wrong in the future. Sure wouldn't be the first time.

But as is, in all my years of seeing 3D, from Dial M for Murder to Terminator 3D to Avatar to owning a 3DS and playing 3D games, the experience has been a negative value at worst and a neutral difference at best. And I think 60 years of released content gives people the right to criticize 3D as a concept beyond merely what your post said was its current implementation.

EDIT:

The issue is considering anything that doesn't work exactly like real life automatically worthless. By that reasoning, we shouldn't bother to play a videogame ever again as they all would be.

That wasn't my intention. I was referring to earlier posters who made the analogy like: "If you don't like 3D, try playing basketball with one eye closed."

That was my point of reference. I have a host of problems with 3D that extend beyond realism.

 

[Jocchan]

I can see 3d images. Its not even remotely as important an advance as color images.

That's not what I meant.
The poster I quoted was commenting posts considering 3D worthless because some people can't, unfortunately, see 3D images. Which sucks, but doesn't automatically make 3D worthless just like color (my less extreme example) is not worthless because of some people being, unfortunately, colorblind.
I wasn't comparing the usefulness of 3D to color, of course.

It's cool if you like it. I've never had problems with anyone liking 3D. I'm mostly addressing this statement that all the current ills fall on 3D's current implementation. There are inherent problems with the delivery system as well as the actual quality of being faux-three-dimensional.

For me, it's never added to any experience; film, gaming, pop-up book, or otherwise. Of course, full virtual reality headsets could come on, and those could be amazing. If you want to call those a later implementation of 3D, well, okay I guess. I reserve the right to be wrong in the future. Sure wouldn't be the first time.

But as is, in all my years of seeing 3D, from Dial M for Murder to Terminator 3D to Avatar to owning a 3DS and playing 3D games, the experience has been a negative value at worst and a neutral difference at best. And I think 60 years of released content gives people the right to criticize 3D as a concept beyond merely what your post said was its current implementation.

Oh, I know. But, really, you're admitting yourself future implementations of 3D could be amazing. Which is exactly what I meant. Faulting 3D itself for the bad implementations in the last 60 years is still incorrect, if you can have good implementations in the future.

 

[FieryBalrog]

It's hard to believe between the 3 but Microsoft really knew what they were doing with their pet project (LIVE) while Sony and Nintendo have failed miserably to date with their pet projects (3D).

The biggest trend of the future is yet more online and social gaming. That adds a huge, tangible value to the whole hobby and Nintendo would do well to actually pay attention to it for once.

 

[StuBurns]

in all my years of seeing 3D, from Dial M for Murder to Terminator 3D to Avatar to owning a 3DS and playing 3D games, the experience has been a negative value at worst and a neutral difference at best. And I think 60 years of released content gives people the right to criticize 3D as a concept beyond merely what your post said was its current implementation.

Why are you still bothering then?

 

[test_account]

Console wise at least Crysis 2. PC wise? Pretty much all of them. Or should I say pretty much all of them are able to. A few are/were properly supported (as in a selling point/feature by EA) like BFBC2 and Crysis 2.

Crysis 2 does.

EDIT: Beaten, hot damn.

Ah yes, i forgot about Crysis 2 But on PC, are the games built around to support 3D or is it just some "filter" applied to the games? The only reason why i see not to support 3D gaming is if it is much extra cost to adding it. 3D is afterall optional even if it is supported in games.