Sure I can, and it's already happening with (DS plus (*) PSP) > (Wii plus PS3 plus XB360), but it wouldn't be a replacement unless it offers whatever home consoles users are used to: but offering all that a portable would risk overshooting its main market.

(*) damn plus sign, when will VGC bring it back?

Portable console often outsold home ones, but they aren't a replacement for them, parallax barrier is a simple and clever tech, but the size of the grille, its distance from the plane of the pixels and the distanze between users' eyes determine a very narrow zone within which you can enjoy 3D, put this tech in a living room and only one user will be able to view in 3D. Is there a way to evolve this tech to overcome this limit? Maybe, but even if it's the case, 3DS remains a device usable by only one person at a time, due to its screen size and having only one set of controls built-in and not expandable. Moreover, Nintendo doesn't own the tech, it just buys displays from display producers, if they find a way to port that tech to home TVs it will be available to everybody and it won't disrupt PS3, that will be able to use it like anybody else, but 3DTVs with glasses, including Sony ones . Whatever 3D tech will conquer the living room will be, if stereoscopic, readily usable by anyone that was already using stereoscopy, including glasses, otherwise, if it will be not stereoscopic, every console and game producer previously using stereoscopy will have to start on a par with the others and will have to redesign the stage of image generation, parallax barrier gives a great advantage in portable devices, but that advantage isn't transferred to other fields, and what's more, it's a tech very SW compatible with its current competitors, that so won't be left behind, not only, it also doesn't create a barrier for SW developers, so that if they choose 3DS they aren't exclusively locked to it.

So, IMVHO, the potential for disruption exists, if they devise the right refinement of the tech, but towards 3D with glasses (*), not towards home consoles.

(*) That is anyway doomed, whatever 3D tech viable for home TVs not using glasses will be released first, will kill it.

That is what disruption is. Crappy products for crappy consumers. The 3D will get better and move upstream. All of what has happened cries a disruption.

@Griffein:Have you seen videos of Other M from E3? It is pretty much drama in space. Samus has loads of inner monologues. Character says two sentenses. Monologue. Character says helllo. Monologue. Not to mention how she keeps talking about the "baby." It's just way over the top and is ruining Samus as a character.

The bolds

You just described a disruption. A disruption is always bad compaired to the incumbent. Sony would see the 3DS as "crappy 3D." The 3D on the 3DS will get better.

You are totally wrong about the second part, and this is why you do not get disruption. Disruption is a value innovation. Disruptors work in that they have new values, namely a asymetric motivation and an asymetric skill. This is also why Christiansen calls them "Disruptive Innovation," verses a "Disruptive Technology," after his first book. Nintendo's 3D will only be absorbed if they lack the skill and the motivation.

The 3DS is disruptive. There is no doubt about it. Look at the very end of Nintendo's press conferense and how many times they say "No more glasses," and the begining of Sony's Press Conference where they talk about the "true 3D experience."

Here is a video to prove my point. Listen to how he hates current 3D and likes the new one.

Just in case you didn't notice, Malstrom has discussed that some things with home consoles that can't be replaced on handhelds. You can't do Wii Sports or DDR on a handheld, for example (and the latter was actually tried, but not so well).

The bolds

You just described a disruption. A disruption is always bad compaired to the incumbent. Sony would see the 3DS as "crappy 3D." The 3D on the 3DS will get better.

You are totally wrong about the second part, and this is why you do not get disruption. Disruption is a value innovation. Disruptors work in that they have new values, namely a asymetric motivation and an asymetric skill. This is also why Christiansen calls them "Disruptive Innovation," verses a "Disruptive Technology," after his first book. Nintendo's 3D will only be absorbed if they lack the skill and the motivation.

The 3DS is disruptive. There is no doubt about it. Look at the very end of Nintendo's press conferense and how many times they say "No more glasses," and the begining of Sony's Press Conference where they talk about the "true 3D experience."

Here is a video to prove my point. Listen to how he hates current 3D and likes the new one.

The point is that the parallax barrier technology, right now, is very limted in its applications and will be useless as a home theater solution for several years. After that, if it isn't a technological dead end and it gets better enough to be used on a big screen for mltiple viewers, it will be a competing tech for other 3d big display techs. This has little to do with the PS3, that will display its 3D games and BluRay movies on whatever TV it is connected to, including a glassless parallax barrier 2012 model.

Sony will either adopt the new tech or fight it if they have any stake on a competing tech, but it's about the screens, not the consoles. In some ways, the 3DS bringing more limelight on 3D gaming and 3D displays could even work as a benefit for Sony, because the sooner a new expensive TV set can be built by buying a glassless display from the same providers Nintendo uses, the sooner Sony can bring out a new generation of TVs.

Again: the PS3 is not tied to the current glass-needing displays. Sony is not tied to the current display technology for their TVs. Nintendo did not invent the glassless displays, nor they will be their sole users, nor will they develop any special skillset on it that is not technology-agnostic. Please explain how the 3DS is disruptive of Sony's 3D push for home theaters today, including the PS3.

Rephrase it as "3DS is an adopter of a technolgy that poses a disruption threat to the current big 3D screens tech" and I will agree.

That phrase implies a higher quality game overthinker, but most of the other game overthinkers are lousy at predictions.

You are abstracting disruption too much: my main points are that right now parallax barrier isn't viable for home TVs, so it's confined to portables (and so increasing Nintendo strength in that market), and that Nintendo doesn't own that tech.

If and when displays producers refine that tech to the point it's usable on home TVs, it will disrupt without any doubt 3D TVs with glasses (unless they won't have been already disrupted by another glasses-less tech), but those TVs will be usable by ANY console that was already able to deliver stereoscopic 3D.

Whenever that tech will go upmarket in the home TV market, it won't be by any means a Nintendo exclusive. Asymmetric motivation and skill cannot magically give parallax barrier the ability to run on home TVs, but once display producers manage to do it, they'll keep on selling their new TVs and monitors to whoever wants them, not exclusively to Nintendo consoles owners, whenever it will be ready for home TVs, it will be available to everybody, so parallax barrier going upstream will actually benefit Nintendo competitors on home consoles, while currently they are left behind by 3DS on portables. The disruptive potential of 3DS' 3D tech is currently limited to portables, but whenever it goes upmarket to home TV, it will put all the contenders on the same level.

But even if 3DS were disruptive for home consoles, it would be so for EVERY home console, as they are all limited in their 3D possibilities in the same way, by the current 3D home TVs limits.