Topic: Sharp Presents 3D Touchscreen LCD: 3DS Technology In Action?

[Crimm]

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=22847

 

On Friday, Sharp showed off their newest generation 3D LCD Touchscreens.  That sounds eerily familiar.    

Yoshisuke Hasegawa, the general manager of Sharp's Liquid Crystal Display Business, presented the new screens at a press event in Tokyo.  Sharp boasts that their screens feature "the highest brightness" in the 3D LCD Touchscreen market.    

The screens can display in 3D or 2D modes, and allow the user to view 3D images without the use of glasses.  Of course, all of this sounds exactly like what we know about the Nintendo 3DS.  Just like the leading speculation for the 3DS, Sharp's new screen's 3D image is the result of a parallax barrier.    

It's important to note that Sharp is among the companies that have provided LCD screens to Nintendo. (Sharp was fined for a price-fixing scheme, related to the Nintendo DS screens, back in 2008.) Sharp was already mentioned as being the provider of screens for the 3DS in a March 23 story from the Asahi news agency.    

It's a reasonable assumption (assumption being the reason this isn't news) that these screens are the same ones that will be in Nintendo's 3DS.      

One final piece of evidence relates to the timing of the 3DS announcement.  Despite being a week in advance of the release of the DSi XL in western territories, NCL announced that the hardware will be made obsolete in the near future.  CNBC reported that the Japanese press had been in contact with the "suppliers" for the 3DS, and Nintendo wanted to be the ones to announce the system, fearing an impending press leak.  Given that Sharp was most likely planning this event for weeks, it's not unreasonable to assume that a 3DS related link would result from their efforts.    

While it's impossible to confirm that Sharp's newest screens are going to find their way into the 3DS, the preponderance of evidence seems to suggest as much.  At the very least, the Sharp presentation provides images of some very nice looking screens.

[TheBlackCat]

No surprise here, this is exactly the technology I predicted the 3DS would use in the discussion of the original announcement.  No other 3D technology I am ware of has the properties necessary to work on something like the DS.

[vudu]

I think it's also interesting to note that the standard size of these new screens is 3.4"--i.e. bigger than the screens of the DSi (3.25") but significantly smaller than those of the DSi XL (4.2").  This is consistent with the reports that the 3DS will have screens smaller than those of the DSi XL.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Auto windshields are smaller than the DSi XL.

[vudu]

Maybe if you're Ralph S. Mouse.

[Halbred]

I'm still not clear on how a 3D image is shown. It doesn't sound a whole lot different than red/green images, but I don't understand how it works without glasses.

[MegaByte]

[Crimm]

I'll put something to explain how it works after I finish...well you know what I'm working on.

[Halbred]

Yes, I do. I imagine we'll see it sometime in May, or perhaps June.

LOL. Just givin' you a hard time, sir.

Aaron's diagram is helpful, but it implies that the viewer (user) has to be at the EXACT RIGHT SPOT for a 3D effect to occur.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Where do you hold your DS?

My guess would be elbows slightly bent, but the DS directly infront of you. Therefore you would likely be right in the sweet spot 99% of the time. I could link you to the 3DS thread where I'm sure it's all been explained, but I'm sure you would have already seen it if you were interested.

And even if they were to include tilt controls in a game, there is tech using the camera and a parallax screen that can adjust the viewing angle for the view using eye-tracking. I'm not sure if Nintendo is gonna use something like that, but it is certainly possible. Nintendo has been sinking boat loads of Money into something, and I don't see why that can't be one of the things.