Nintendo continue to innovate with their newest console. Their innovation this time? Glassless 3D: an effect so intense it causes dizziness and nausea in most people who try it. The result? It’s being reported that many Japanese gamers are returning their 3DS units after experiencing bouts of dizziness playing it for too long.
The trouble is, how long is too long? The manufacturer recommends that one limit his 3D viewing to half hour bouts or less. I tested it for under 3 minutes before crying uncle and requesting Gravol (TM) tablets. Other transient special effects in my case included slow focusing of both my eyes for about 20 minutes after exposure, and a residual headache and pain behind both my eyes for the rest of the afternoon.
Granted, I’ve been very sensitive to motion sickness after my Great Concussion of 1999, an incident involving a lawnmower that ran out of gas, a 6′ tall shed door and me, 6′ tall, running head first and full stride into the top of the door frame, but I digress.
My friend Eric, who tagged along at the 3DS kiosk near our office in Montreal also experienced dizziness and what he described as “a difficulty focusing his right eye and some pain behind that same eye.”
So all this brings me to the We Interrupt to give you a tip of the week bit, and this week the tip goes to Nintendo (and Sony): If either companies want to remain contenders in the portable console market, they need to either start developing games for the Android or iPhone platforms, or develop their own phone platform and embed gaming into it. Face it, nobody will want to lug around a second device, only to play video games, when any smartphone, will enable them to play Angry Birds and also grant them access to 3G Internet, mobile phone, MP3s, movies and TV shows, social networking and YouTube, as well as the inevitable pornography on the go.
[…] with my friend and co-worker Eric, whom you might remember, was my companion during the Nintendo 3DS misadventure (from which I only just almost completely regained my full, straight eyesight). We decided to take […]