I have been giving a lot of thought trying to imagine exactly what Nintendo would do next. Last time they told everyone what they were up to, only nobody listened.
Hints: Iwata and Miyamoto have both made some enigmatic statements that indicated that it would be HD but not about HD. Malstrom seemed to have some inside information about something "that you already have in your Wii but don't know about. But nothing came of it. Also the idea that the Wii 2 would have to disrupt the current one seemed accepted."
I think they are waiting for the CPU/GPU Fusion, NVIDIA GPU parallel processing, Open GL whatever but it will be some sort of GPU centric highly integrated system on a chip. But even though they would have power, they seemed in no rush to commit fully to digital TV.
Some design features struck me as odd. Like why have the IR sources in the bar and have the triangulation done by the Wiimote? The other way around is how it's usually done and cheaper and easier.
Then suddenly it all came together. I think I know what Nintendo's next great disruption will be. It's not about HD, it's about 3-D.
3-D video is nothing new, Imax theaters have had it using polarized glasses. There are the funny glasses with two little screens. There are red green glasses. And if your pockets are deep enough you can buy large 3-D monitor's that use rectilinear lenses etc. say for $12K or so. All of these methods use dual video inputs to simplify the equipment on the user. In a theater you have an expensive dual projector so that you only need cheap polarized glasses on the audience. People just shelled out for big TVs, they're not going to want to buy another more expensive set or worse yet,two sets.
There is another way that uses standard televisions and I have used it. I worked with 3-D television when I was working on some stories for National Geographic. They had 3-D video of the Titanic and they were going to show it at the Explorer's Club. Very exclusive, Prince Charles (a member) was the guest speaker as I recall. The video was shot from an expedition getting Imax film.
I was in a friends office and the video was playing on a standard monitor in 2-D but I'm a Titanic nut so I watched. My friend Pete returned and walked up and handed me a pair of glasses with a wire and told me to put them on. Instantly the wreck acquired depth and the long white tails of the rat tailed fish whipped right out of the screen. It was some of the best 3-D I had ever seen.
The system worked using a standard interlaced video signal. Those are the standards that end in "i" such as 720i as opposed to "p" such as 1080p for progressive. Progressive scan does the entire image before refreshing so it has to do it faster. All television used to use interlace although it's falling from favor. In interlaced video, every other line was scanned on one pass and then the interlaced lines on the next. It was originally intended to cut the time in half between at least partial refresh times.
There were other ways to use the interlace however. In this 3-D system the signal from two different cameras were merged, one camera for the each half of the interlace. The glasses were LCD shutters that could open and close at video rate. When the left hand camera scan was displayed your left eye was uncovered and vice versa. The shutter was too fast to be seen, you just saw the resulting 3-D. It worked great, the image quality and 3-D were fantastic although you lost brightness from one eye always being covered. The glasses were synchronized to the video with the wire and at the time the glasses were almost $1000 a pair so it was not a home device.
I looked up on the Internet to see where that technology is today and up pops a system with two pair of glasses and controller for <$99. But no more wires to tangle up, the glasses are synchronized through an IR signal. Technologically this is a piece of cake, you could buy the kit and do it yourself except the games aren't done in 3-D.
I realized that this was not a major challenge. Video games are used to supplying first person viewpoint cameras and having two in tandem would be no more difficult that writing a game with two camera co-op. It could even be turned on and off in a game like split screen. You could play the game either way.
Of course with a standard game and controller it would hardly be more than a novelty. To make it fantastic you'd have to have 3-D motion tracking. In fact for sword fights and the like, it would have to be real time 1:1 motion tracking. Too bad that doesn't exist... Oh wait, isn't that Motion Plus?
Take motion plus which gives you accurate 3-D motion, add this to a box putting out 1080i or 720i (it of course won't work on progressive scan) and virtual reality 3-D gaming is here. Holy sheepdip Batman, all they were lacking was true 3-D control. With motion plus they have it. Iwata said the Wii2 wasn't going to be just HD. He's not kidding.
If I thought of this, you reckon they have? Of course they have. Oh man, Nintendo rolls this out and everybody else can close up shop and go home. What could beat true 3-D gaming.
In fact it could be here already. There was a persistent rumor that Nintendo had a big surprise already built into the system. Everyone has given up waiting but they already have the infrared lamp that could synch the glasses. If they have it ready to send a video synch. - not hard- it's done. It may be they ship motion Plus and the next day announce a firmware upgrade and some glasses at $49 a pair and hell, Wii sport resort could even be a 3-D game.
Maybe they will wait for the Wii2 but I don't know why. Given the choice between pretty shading and true 3-D virtual reality I know what I'd choose.
