Sharp To Supply 3D LCD Displays for Nintendo 3DS—Source

The coming Nintendo 3DS handheld system will use Sharp’s 3D LCD technology, an informed source told Consumer Electronics Daily Wednesday. The method used by Sharp, commonly referred to as parallax barrier, “is well known but expensive,” the source said. The same source is predicting that Sony Computer Entertainment will release a 3D version of the PSP by year-end that, like the 3DS, won’t require glasses, though it’s unclear what method Sony would use for the PSP’s 3D effect.

Sony Computer Entertainment America didn’t respond by our deadline to a request for comment. A Sharp spokeswoman said only that she was unable to reach the people in the company who could confirm the information about Sharp supplying 3D LCD technology for the 3DS. Nintendo remained mum on 3DS specifics beyond the sketchy details it disclosed Tuesday in announcing plans for the new system (CED March 24 p1). Sharp and Hitachi have supplied LCDs for the Nintendo DS.

Introducing a notebook computer using TFT 3D LCD technology in 2003, Sharp Systems of America said it was developed jointly by Sharp and Sharp Laboratories Europe, and allowed users to easily switch between 2D and 3D display modes. It said that, “using a parallax barrier” made of material that is placed in front of the display, “light from the LCD is divided so that different patterns reach the viewer’s left and right eyes.” The technology “works on the principle of displaying left and right eye views that are separated so that the left eye sees only the left eye image, and the right eye sees only the right eye image,” Ian Matthew, 3D Solutions business development manager at Sharp Systems of America, said then. “Since these images have perspective and are offset in the same way that the human eye normally sees the two images, the brain naturally interprets the image disparity and creates a ’sense of depth’ effect,” he said.

Andrew Oliver, chief technology officer at developer Blitz Games Studios in the U.K., hoped Nintendo would be using the parallax barrier technique to achieve its 3D effect without glasses, he told us. The technology “is ideally suited to a handheld, as it doesn’t need 3D glasses to see the 3D,” he said. TV manufacturers aren’t using the technology because it works best for “a single user within a specific ‘zone’ (for example, roughly straight on and within a few feet of the screen),” he said. “It doesn’t matter … how the screen is tilted as the zone is horizontal only, and can be viewed very well for all vertical angles,” he said.

Parallax barrier would be a better choice for the 3DS than the lenticular 3D method, which Oliver said also doesn’t require glasses, but doesn’t permit the display of 2D images and “you must be in a particular physical position to see the effect working.” But other 3D techniques that could be used are backlight directional, which Fuji uses for its 3D digital camera, and “stacking two TFT displays,” such as what PureDepth does with its multi-layer displays, Jennifer Colegrove, director of display technologies at DisplaySearch, said at the company’s blog Wednesday. “It is likely to be parallax barrier” that Nintendo uses for the 3DS “since its display suppliers, Hitachi and Sharp, use this approach,” she said. Although “much of the buzz around 3D this year has been focused on TVs requiring shutter glasses,” she said “there is tremendous growth potential for small/medium 3D displays in applications such as mobile phones, cameras and picture frames,” in addition to portable game systems. Those and other applications “could grow from less than $10 million” last year to more than $1 billion in 2018, she said.

Adding 3D to a handheld system’s display overcomes one obstacle that’s been inherent up to now with making 3D games played on TVs, Oliver said. “When making a game compatible with a 3D display, you're never quite sure how good it will look and have to appreciate the majority of the players will only see it in 2D. Having a device designed with a 3D display will mean that game designers can tailor their games to maximize the 3D experience and this will further immerse the players into the games,” he said.

Insight Media analyst Dale Maunu said Tuesday that “if the 3DS supports switchable 2D/3D so that all of their 2D games still look correct, then” the system will “speed the arrival of autostereoscopic 3D (AS-3D) to the consumer market.” But, he cautioned, “If the 3DS does not allow the AS-3D feature to be fully turned off, and there are some compromises in the 2D visual performance on older games, then I would be concerned that customer acceptance would not be great."

Oliver didn’t say if Blitz planned to make games for the 3DS. But he said Blitz was “very excited” by Nintendo’s announcement. Blitz was the first company to develop a stereoscopic 3D console game, Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao for the PS3 and Xbox 360, released last year, and is “working on more titles that support the new 3D TVs that are coming to market,” he said.

THQ spokeswoman Julie MacMedan, on the other hand, told us, “We plan to make games for the new Nintendo 3D system.” In doing so, THQ became the first third-party publisher to publicly pledge support for the 3DS handheld system that Nintendo said it will ship by the end of its fiscal year ending March 2011. THQ didn’t provide specifics on what games it will release for the new system. That THQ was the first third-party publisher to back the 3DS wasn’t a huge surprise given its historical strength on Nintendo’s platforms and focus on games targeted at young gamers.

Majesco Entertainment, which has concentrated on the DS and Wii for much of the current console cycle, offered a less blunt show of support for the 3DS than THQ. Majesco CEO Jesse Sutton called Nintendo’s 3DS announcement “interesting news” while speaking at the Needham & Company Game Day conference in New York Wednesday. The DS is “the most successful handheld gaming platform in the history of games,” having sold more than 125 million units globally, he said. Helping it are the various Nintendo exclusive properties, including Donkey Kong, Mario and Pokemon, he said. “As the DS progresses, that puts Majesco in a very good position to take advantage of that,” he said. DS presents “the biggest opportunity for us in 2010,” Gui Karyo, Majesco executive vice president of operations, said. Majesco is “one of the top 10 third-party publishers” on the DS, and its Cooking Mama is the best-selling third-party franchise on the system, he said.

The Majesco executives didn’t specifically say that their company will make 3DS games. But Karyo said, “We're expecting to see a bump” from the release of the 3DS, “which we're expecting to see in November.” And just before commenting on the system, Sutton said again that his company is “platform agnostic” and will support Microsoft’s “Project Natal” for the Xbox 360, Sony’s PlayStation Move for the PS3, and social network gaming. Those are “all platforms … Majesco will focus on,” he said.