Nintendo 3DS To Help People Figure the Z-Axis
Now you can hit question mark blocks more easily.
Nintendo has a habit of only including technical features into its hardware when it sees a practical use in gaming. So imagine our surprise when the 3DS appeared; seemingly a gimmick tech being hoisted up by rivals, right? Not quite, says Shigeru Miyamoto, who has been talking up the gameplay benefits of 3D to USA Today.
"Up until now it has been challenging for people to understand the spatial relationships between objects within the game. A couple of good examples are trying to hit a question mark block floating in the air above you and understanding where you need to stand in order to jump up and hit that," Miyamoto said.
"By adding 3D visuals to these fully-rendered worlds what happens is the spatial relationships between objects becomes much clearer. People can see the difference. They can see the height, they can see the depth much more clearly."
Other interesting highlights include an elaboration on the 'always-on' connectivity that the 3DS device will have, including a built-in functionality for things such as the "Bark" mode from Nintendogs. Instead of the situation on the Nintendo DS version - where players had to have the game cart in the unit, turned on, activating the "Bark" option and then hitting sleep mode - Miyamoto reveals that the company plans to have a format that does away with all of these hurdles.
"The idea with this is that it is built into the hardware. You don't necessarily have to have the game on and you don't have to have specifically set it into "Bark mode" at that moment. If you have set up your "Bark mode" data in the hardware, then it would do that regardless of whether you have actively set it up or have tried to activate "Bark mode" on any particular trip," sayeth the man.
More morsels of gaming industry genius - including having a "pet submarine" in Steel Diver - at USA Today.
"Up until now it has been challenging for people to understand the spatial relationships between objects within the game. A couple of good examples are trying to hit a question mark block floating in the air above you and understanding where you need to stand in order to jump up and hit that," Miyamoto said.
"By adding 3D visuals to these fully-rendered worlds what happens is the spatial relationships between objects becomes much clearer. People can see the difference. They can see the height, they can see the depth much more clearly."
Other interesting highlights include an elaboration on the 'always-on' connectivity that the 3DS device will have, including a built-in functionality for things such as the "Bark" mode from Nintendogs. Instead of the situation on the Nintendo DS version - where players had to have the game cart in the unit, turned on, activating the "Bark" option and then hitting sleep mode - Miyamoto reveals that the company plans to have a format that does away with all of these hurdles.
"The idea with this is that it is built into the hardware. You don't necessarily have to have the game on and you don't have to have specifically set it into "Bark mode" at that moment. If you have set up your "Bark mode" data in the hardware, then it would do that regardless of whether you have actively set it up or have tried to activate "Bark mode" on any particular trip," sayeth the man.
More morsels of gaming industry genius - including having a "pet submarine" in Steel Diver - at USA Today.
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