Nintendo revealed few details when announcing the upcoming 3-D version of its DS gaming handheld, other than saying you won't need special glasses to play. The company then winked coyly before disappearing behind a corner and blending into the crowd.
With so few particulars, I'm left to wonder how Nintendo is going to pull off this hardware coup. An eyewear-free platform is the holy grail of 3-D gaming, both in the sense that it's unattained and highly sought-after, and in the sense that Jesus probably owned one.
Here are my best guesses about how the Nintendo 3DS might work.
Magic Eye Technology
The 3DS will actually be two plain old DS consoles, set about 6 inches apart. To play the game, you'll have to sit back and unfocus your eyes, as with the old Magic Eye posters. This means that only about half of gamers will be able to see the 3-D images; the other half will merely get headaches after anywhere from two to eight seconds. As an added bonus, every game will come with an expert mode where you cross your eyes instead of unfocusing them, so everything looks inverted.
Bulge Technology
I've heard about this one before, and it always cracks me up. You put some sort of motor-driven pusher behind a flexible screen, and the screen itself bulges in roughly the places where you'd like to see a 3-D image. Hold on a sec, let my refill my 24-ounce vacuum thermos with fresh, hot sarcasm.
Yeah, I'm sure that's really immersive. There's no way that a bubbling, pulsating screen is going to be in any way distracting or laughably unconvincing.
Seriously, if this is Nintendo's plan, I'll probably buy one just to scare the cats.
Pop-Up Puppet Technology
I invented this one myself. You know those little baby fun toys where they slap a button and a little plastic Cookie Monster jumps up from his spider hole with an audible squeak? And they make you terrified of Cookie Monster and you have recurring nightmares about a squeaking monster jumping up at you even decades later?
What if we adapted that technology to videogames? Instead of a plastic Cookie Monster, it could be a little pixel screen upon which you render an orc or an alien or a Cooking Mama, and behind it could be a bigger background screen, and the puppets could move back and forth like a shooting gallery.
Yeah, it's an even dumber idea than the bulge screen, but maybe I could patent it really quickly and hit up Nintendo for millions if I guessed right.
Polarized Contact-Lens Technology
Nintendo said you wouldn't have to wear special glasses to play with the 3DS. The company didn't say anything about special contact lenses. Die-hard fans have, over the years, put up with non-backlit screens, special headphone adapters and ungainly online friend codes from Nintendo. Would they be willing to stick things in their eyes to play the latest WarioWare game? Need you ask? Frankly, Nintendo could require optical implants and still attract a pretty solid install base.
Drugs
The most likely answer, of course, is the simplest: Nintendo has developed a carefully targeted hallucinogen that makes you think lizards and plumbers are leaping out of the screen at you. All that remains is for the company to figure out how to make it so the drug doesn't work with the PSP, the Xbox 360, the current DS, broadcast television, normal wallpaper and, in fact, completely blank walls covered with white paint.
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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to kinda wish he had a Virtual Boy.
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