im pretty sure the fact that 3d ticket prices are higher had something to do with that.

That doesn't stop it from being a fad. Its a fad because it shows up every so often, gets exciting news and then fades away again. It will have its time eventually, but right now its still a little to expensive for the average joe

I think the sad truth is today's consoles (Xbox 360 and PS3) aren't really powerful enough to pull off good 3D.   Sure, they both try, and the PS3 a little more than the Xbox 360, but, as I understand, going 3D requires an instant 50% more graphics power.  That's quite significant.  And 3D seems to highlight little problems and make sparkles where Anti-Aliasing isn't so good.  So you lose a rather significant amount of graphic fidelity just to go 3D.

A gaming PC, with their more powerful hardware, can pull it off better.  But even the newest Intel Ivory Bridge CPU/GPU combo can just barely pull of 3D at 1080P in DirectX 11 at 30fps (a dedicated high end GPU should be able to get 60 frames per second.)  So we are really just now at the beginning to where the 3D generating hardware needs to be.

As far as display, glasses free will be great, but we aren’t there yet.  I personally don’t like the shutter form of 3D as I see the flicker (if you want to see what I am talking about look at the power like on your Xbox 360 – if you see it blinking really fast, then you know what I am talking about.)  I like the ‘passive’ TV from LG and Vizeo, as you can also enjoy 24P, skip the judder and 2:3 pull down, but they cut the 1080p in half, so you get 540/540 per eye.  Again you get a better picture or 3D, but not both. I hope this problem is solved with the introduction of 4K 3D Tv’s.

To sum up my answer, is neither the hardware or display tech is quite where it needs to be to pull it off well.  We are just at the beginning.

Nintendo killed it with the 3ds

I had some interest in it, but getting the necessary monitor and glasses made it prohibitively expensive. Plus I was never convinced that it added much, anyway.

Anyways, OT, I love 3D and I hope it stays. I just don't want to pay a premium for it, I want it de-facto like in the 3DS.

It was too early.
3D will make a come back eventually.

Talk about Ps3.

Every 3DS game supports 3D (there's an exception on eShop for a canned wiiware title I think).

And I play it on 3D everytime. Love it.

The current implementation of stereoscopic 3D is anything but natural. It asks your brain to ignore convergence and focal length cues of your eyes to determine distance. It will keep looking fake as long as you have to focus on 1 arbitrary plane and depth of field is decided for you. In real life I can focus at will on my laptop or what's behind it which completely changes what I see. Try to do that in a stereoscopic scene and your brain starts hurting.
Another important 3D clue is also ignored, parallax. Moving your head does not change the scene.

And sure it's a cool trick the first couple of times you see it. The 48fps IMAX dome presentation of swimming among coral reefs was pretty amazing in Futuroscope, yet a 20 minute presentation is good enough for me. A 2hr movie, exhausting.

And then there's the resolution drop, loss of color, annoying glasses or having to keep your head in 1 place for glassless 3D. Plus as you said yourself, you need a big field of view. Watching a 40" 3D tv from the couch is pretty pointless. No wonder it's not catching on.


The occulus rift hopefully solves the parallax problem, although the prototype only has rotational head tracking for now, not positional. Still not being able to adjust focus to near and far objects will remain a problem.

3d is a fad. Ive never been interested in gaming or watching films in 3d. I just dont see what all the fuss is about.