Evening Reading

Now that the specs for the upcoming crop of next-gen handheld gaming devices from Nintendo and Sony have been revealed, there's a lot to be potentially excited about. I must confess, even having never been much for portable gaming myself, the tech is very exciting.

Bells and whistles aside, the one thing that could potentially sour my enthusiasm is cost. Pricing is still unknown for Sony's Next Generation Portable (NGP), though it'll likely be more expensive than Nintendo's 3DS, which is expected to retail for $250. That gives me pause, because as cool as the technology seems, I'm not sure I'm ready to pay roughly the same amount for portable gaming (hardware and software) than I do to play on the PC, Xbox 360, or PS3. In NGP's case, if it's just a matter of bringing PC and console-quality experiences to smaller platform, I expect I'd still gravitate to play the version I can experience on my TV, where I can get 10x the screen real-estate.

In other words, I'm cautiously optimistic, with a dash of wallet-panic.

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From The Chatty
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    January 28, 2011 5:00 PM

    I'm looking forward to the 3DS... despite my inability to see in 3d!

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      January 28, 2011 5:01 PM

      [deleted]

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      January 28, 2011 5:03 PM

      Go on?

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      January 28, 2011 5:04 PM

      Tragic semen related half-blinding?

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      January 28, 2011 5:05 PM

      Your getting ahead of yourself, you cant even look threeward and your already moving to forward?

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      January 28, 2011 5:09 PM

      unconnected refractive condition? one eye is more near-sighted or far-sighted than another?astigmatism? not seeing very clearly out of one eye? lazy eye?

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        January 28, 2011 5:10 PM

        I just learned about that condition that some people have where they can't see in 3d. Their brain just doesn't process the image in 3d like normal people do, and they can often go their whole lives without realizing it (like color blindness.)

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          January 28, 2011 5:21 PM

          [deleted]

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          January 28, 2011 5:33 PM

          ^^^ that's probably me. I could see 3D in the Captain EO days, but as an adult, 3D glasses don't register -- I just see the correct 2D image.

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          January 28, 2011 5:33 PM

          so they see the world like a flat image? that'd be wild.

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            January 28, 2011 5:38 PM

            I believe it's just like if you were to close one eye. You lose most of your depth perception, but a slight amount still remains (caused by the fact that your eye does have a "camera-like" focus system for different depths.)

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            January 28, 2011 5:40 PM

            no, they have spatial perception, but it may not be as pronounced or doesn't work with artificial 3D.

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              January 28, 2011 6:23 PM

              as in: the brain processes the image just enough to determine relative position of objects, but doesnt want to do the trig to actually determine the depth of an image?

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        January 28, 2011 6:34 PM

        just reading wikipedia about this: so actually most people can't uncouple their eyes? I always wondered why people had to do that 'look behind the page' shit with magic eye pictures.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplopia

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          January 28, 2011 6:35 PM

          [deleted]

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            January 28, 2011 6:47 PM

            I tried to phrase to avoid this :) The only 3D movie i've seen was kinda spoilt since I didn't really automatically line up the images. Oh sure I could see the effect, but I had to try a little.

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        January 28, 2011 6:40 PM

        Yes: unconnected refractive condition :(

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      January 28, 2011 5:21 PM

      [deleted]

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        January 28, 2011 6:35 PM

        this has always upset me about 3d movies, most effects you see in trailer or before the movie starts are like OMG... during the movie there is usually 0 scenes that really look awesome and poppy

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      January 28, 2011 5:39 PM

      Is it an astigmatism thing?

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      January 28, 2011 5:53 PM

      Hi five, fellow 2.5d

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      January 28, 2011 6:32 PM

      Consider yourself lucky, you can play everything in 60fps.

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