Is He Looking At Me Or You? Cross Eyed 3DS Early Adopters Offered An Explanation At Last.

The playground like bravado of to 3D or not to 3D wages on, the pantomime cries of 'it does work', 'oh no it doesn't' echo from the streets, and it seems that 3DS owners are split firmly into the camps of slider on or slider off. But what has been most perplexing is that, not unlike Nintendo's inability to prove the 3D capabilities without the unit actually in your hand, players who do and don't get along with the 3D can't prove to each other their side of the argument. This month's Edge magazine however has gone someway to explaining why some of us have genuinely seen the next dimension and why some of us have just bought a really expensive DS.

The problem lies with the type of 3D technology that has been employed by Nintendo, and heavily invested in by the rest of the gaming, movie and multi-media world. Stereoscopic 3D, regardless of whether it uses glasses or the dual screens of the 3DS system is just not conducive to the way certain people interpret 3D images. It tricks the brain into depth perception whilst still only focusing on a 2D plain, often leading to the associated, headaches, eye strain and in worst cases, nausea. So in answer to the question of whether the 3D is adequate for long haul gaming sessions, the answer is unfortunately yes for some and no for others. Whichever way you look at it the warnings that the use of the 3D can stunt the development of eyes in the youngest users is not something to be taken lightly.

So is this the end for 3D? Well, a company named See Real have been working on a new proprietory 3D technology called Holographic 3D, in which holographic projections work much more naturally with the eyes, allowing the user to find his or her own point of focus on an object presented to them in 3D and so mimicking much closer the real world physics that allow the brain to process environments in the third dimenson. But the technology is still in its infancy, and the investments and developments already forged in stereoscopic 3D may make Holographic 3D a financial impossibility, All be it a completely headache free, wonderfully realised financial impossibility.

See this month's EDGE for a much more in depth analysis