5 Reason 3D is on the way up – a rebuttal

1. 3D Is Expensive

We have to remember that these tail-end buyers aren’t the early adopters, they are the bargain hunters.  If indeed people want the 3D benefits, and all the customer data we have to work with says they do, then it’s a brand new product cycle for the early adopters looking to upgrade their living room experience – which is justification for a second HDTV in their home. While I admit that $1,400 is very reasonable for a 3D HDTV, the 3D market is clearly targeting the early adopters now, with the mass market to follow – similar to HDTV.

Unfortunately, it can be an uncomfortable experience if gamers don’t choose their settings properly.  There is a small learning curve here. It’s unfortunate that Samsung’s warning label was blasted across the media the way it was. MTBS has countless members who have been happily gaming in 3D for a very long time, and see this as a protective corporate measure – not a warning of things to come.

“3D requires you to give up half the frame rate, or give up resolution, in order to display twice as many frames as normal. Many processes result in lower brightness (a big problem with 3D movies).” I’m going to let you in on a dirty gaming industry secret.  While the console spec encourages 60 frames per second game play, many top game developers render at 30 frames per second.  So while the expected drop in frames is getting its share of media coverage, most gamers won’t notice.

As far as resolution is concerned, only a handful of console games render at 1080P.  720P is closer to 2D standard than most realize.  Using traditional 2D gaming as the standard, this drop of resolution and performance isn’t a big deal at all.  The brightness aspect has to do with the choice of 3D television and glasses more so than anything else.  Similar to HDTV progress, 3D displays are getting brighter to compensate, and there are future 3D innovations to come, I’m sure!

“So far it’s not clear what 3D display brings to the game design table in terms of enabling new forms of play. The Wii showed that relatively simple and cheap technology could bring innovative new gameplay modes; so did the DS with its two screens. I have yet to hear how 3D display will enable new game play, or even refine current gameplay.  Without something new to offer, will customers buy into it?”   It’s not about the game play – it never was.  According to The 2009 U-Decide Initiative, the number one reason for gamers to regularly buy updated equipment (e.g. GPUs, CPUs, Sound Cards, better displays, etc.) is game immersion – the desire to feel part of the game.  3D ties into that perfectly, which is why so much interest has developed around it.  There have been some experiments around treating depth as part of the game; like catching fireflies in a net.  However, immersion is the big motivator right now.

“The highly anticipated wave of 3D movies has washed over the theaters and pulled away, leaving the beaches exposed. Avatar did great business, but successive movies had lower audiences.”  A source wasn’t quoted for this remark, so I’m going to take an educated guess.  The Wrap ran an article featuring a chart of 3D movies, and their declining 3D to 2D revenue share.  What The Wrap failed to mention was that each listed movie had fewer and fewer screens to work with.  When Avatar was released, they had virtually no 3D competition.  Now that multiple 3D movies  have to share the limited 3D screen space at the same time, the audience numbers look very different – artificially so.  We also have to remember that Avatar was the biggest selling movie of all time with a 15 year development history – not a 2D/3D afterthought conversion.  Not even Steven Spielberg can shatter movie sales records week after week after week. If life were like that!

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on 5 Reason 3D is on the way up – a rebuttal