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The Nintendo 3DS, Headaches, and Bad Journalism
brumgrunt writes "A British paper is claiming that the Nintendo 3DS poses some kind of health risk. The claim sounds interesting, until you see how that conclusion was reached. 'On the 6th of April, the paper conducted a scientific experiment in which a 22-year-old member of the staff had his blood pressure and pulse taken after playing the 3DS in different situations – at rest, while walking, or while taking a ride in a car. The Sun came to the startling conclusion that the man’s pulse and blood pressure were higher while walking than while sitting down, yet concluded, apropos of nothing, “Children should not be left to play on it for hours.” The article neglects to point out that a raised blood pressure and pulse is perfectly normal, and you’re as likely to experience such a physical response while walking and reading a book as you are when playing the 3DS.'"
Pocket Gamer posted a humorous follow-up, using the Sun's own methods against it.
Please stop calling The Sun a newspaper or it's contents journalism.
It's stories (when not just crap about celebs) are written so that the brit sheeples can feel 'informed'.
They believe anything written in there because its the best selling rag and it leaves them a few more brain cells free to update twittle or facebook pages.
Nothing to see here, it's just The Sun, another celebrity and scandal obsessed tabloid paper, full of yellow journalism at its worst.
this just in. climbing stairs will raise your heartbeat and bloodpressure. Also just in. Breathing uses up calories.
This study requires a double blind where half the participants are given a 3DS with Street Fighter 4 and the other half a dummy store demo with no battery charge to account for the placebo effect.
a 22-year-old member of the staff
I recently did a similar study, using my girlfriend as my sample, to prove that 100% of humans have a vagina.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Look, of course you are "likely to experience such a physical response while walking and reading a book" - because if you think about it, both ALSO involve looking at 3-D objects, just as with the 3DS!!
So in fact if you are concerned about your child's health, you should in fact make sure that instead of interacting with 3D objects they are safely positioned in front of a flat 2D screen. 3D glasses should be hidden (even the Red-Blue kind) and just to be safe, you should make sire that at least four hours of the day are spent playing 2D platformers.
If you have any reluctance in following this plan, remember - it's for the children.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"On the 6th of April, the paper conducted a scientific experiment"
No it didn't. There was nothing scientific and any idiot knows that because it has The Sun written across the top in big letters.
And Nintendo have already complained in the press how much crap all these articles are.
I think their argument is that, compared to taking exercise, it's your resting heart beat that's elevated while playing the game. I still think the article (and the "newspaper") is utter garbage - at the very least they could have tested a larger sample of people and a larger sample of entertainment devices to give this some meaning. But it's the Sun, they don't care about meaning, they just care about fear mongering the latest must have gadget.
Let's all jump on the "popular topics" bandwagon.
...it's nice to know that it isn't just the american media that can't find someone of reasonable intelligence to write their articles.
That entire piece is crap...anything which raises adrenaline will increase heartbeat and blood pressure. Gaming is an activity that some people really get into so of course its going to have that effect. Show me a gamer playing a fps or racing game that doesn't get higher blood pressure and pulse and I'll show you a gamer who's doing it wrong.
That said, sadly this is the first generation I have completely skipped a handheld release with no real intention of getting one at all. While I think the 3d thing is interesting and fairly innovative, I've been spoiled by iOS and Android and just cant see paying $40 for a game again. The counter to that is generally an uneducated response that android and ios games lack the depth of the Sony and Nintendo offerings but they are there if you look for them even in the RPG genre that Nintendo is famous for. I really do think Nintendo is going to be a world of hurt when it comes to handhelds, the price model myth has been disproven, look at World of Goo and Plants vs Zombies and its easy to see high quality games can sell and be very lucrative even at a lower price. Never underestimate the power of discreet gaming, you can carry around a phone or handheld as an adult and get in a few minutes of gaming here and there without so much as a glance, but employers tend to frown on adults bringing their DS or PSP to work with them.
See my post's title.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/
Newspaper! Riiiiiiight
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
Reading the Sun also raises the heartrate and blood pressure of anyone with half a brain.
it's in The Sun. I remember when it used to funny but since it transformed itself into the world's leading scientific journal, Mystic Meg went off to work at the LHC and Zoe McConnell went from in front of the lens to behind the lens - its just never been quite the same.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
The Nintendo 3DS is well protected against piracy. The 3D effect doesn't work if you wear an eyepatch.
This is The Sun of:
UFO Hits Wind Turbine
Haunted Hospital Calls in Exorcist
and famously of course from the 1980s:
Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster Puh-lease!
Did The Onion buy out The Sun on april 1st?
IRC the problem for any 3D screen-based system is the fact that
your eyes need to both
1) focus on the screen while simultaneously
2) converging (right and left eyes pointing) to a locus behind (or of the screen).
This is an unnatural thing to do - a bit like crossing your eyes without noticing.
If you do it for a long time it has a lasting aftereffect where you can't see real world distances properly for some hours afterwards.
If your eyes are still learning to make sense of the world (like children's) they can be fooled in learning wrong things about the world - such as it is normal to focus at one depth and converge at another - thus doing permanent damage
As first commented by me here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/20/nintendo-3ds-could-harm-child-eyes-claim?commentpage=1#comment-9235640
Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in the movies.
I had the opportunity to try one out a couple of weeks ago at a local Game Stop. After about 30 seconds I had to put it down; it made my eyes hurt and kicked off a headache. I will not let my daughter have one.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
A person's pulse rate and blood pressure increase when active. Man, I can wait to see what these guys decide to study next. Maybe they'll answer that big open question that's been bugging humanity for centuries -- just what temperature DOES water boil at?
For the record, I was reading /. on a bumpy country road, and I was the driver. I hit my head on the steering wheel, the roof, and the side window. I personally blame /. for the addiction to read it while driving and for the excessive use of bright white backgounds. I'll be contacting my lawyer just as soon as I post this through my mobile and merge onto the freeway.
I8-D
Not really, I use my GBA to relax, basically I focus on playing the game without elevating my pulse, blood pressure or getting stressed. When I'm really playing well, there is not impact whatsoever on any of those things.
The health concerns might all be bunk, but the stability concerns aren't. The 3DS is notoriously unstable, with widespread reports of frequent crashing. I have personally had my 3DS crash four times while playing a game.
I recently did a similar study, using my girlfriend as my sample, to prove that 100% of humans have a vagina.
Fascinating. They also appear to be inflatable.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Therefore either you are non-human, or you have a vagina?
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
I'd have thought The Sun would be all in favour of 3D. It would improve page 3...
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
> I recently did a similar study, using my girlfriend as my sample, to
> prove that 100% of humans have a vagina.
Hmm...where do you meet those....humans?
If you call Plants vs. Zombies "High Quality," there's no arguing with you. It's fun, but it's a game that would take about a day to program, and then art asset creation takes however long you feel like. It's made by Pop Cap. They thrive on cheap impulse buy games that cost nearly nothing to produce. Plants vs. Zombies is completely undeep, and is basically glorified rock-paper-scissors. World of Goo is a better example, but still is an entire game built around applying the same mechanic in slightly different ways, or padded ways. If you want your argument completely blown out of the water, there's Pilotwings Resort. It's a glorified tech demo, and still has more *actual* depth than 99% of what you'll see on iOS and Android. Multiple vehicles that all act and control completely differently, each with a different set of missions, multiple ranks of missions, and a free-flight mode with hundreds of collectables. It's a game that's easy for anyone to pick up and do decently on, but still with enough depth and precision that you can feel like you're improving if you practice. Am I denying that it's possible to have deep games at cheap price points? No. But games for iOS and Android are pretty much designed around only having those few minutes to play, so they rarely get deep. PSP/3DS games are designed around having a larger chunk of time, not to mention having dedicated controls, so it's possible to do more complex things more easily. The price point is also hampered by the need for physical media since the games are so much larger.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Not only are there no health risks, but the 3DS cameras enhance erectile function!
--- What?
Indeed, sports tends to increase your blood pressure quite a bit. Sports is dangerous for your kids! :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The irony in your statement is that studies that show the back seat is the safest place for children to sit are about as good as this one on the 3DS. They all look at what the results are AFTER a crash instead of looking at what caused the crash. Not one of those studies I have seen test for an INCREASE in accidents due to children sitting in the back seat. Most parents keep an eye on their kids. Particularly infants. If they are not watching them to see why the kid is making a particular noise, they are looking to see why they are being quite.
Saying "The counter to that is generally an uneducated response" before saying something that is obviously and completely wrong doesn't make you right. There is no reason that in depth games cannot be made for phones, but by and large, the games on dedicated hand helds are far more in depth. There is no reason grander games could not be made for the phones. The market just isn't there at this time though. I blame the controls. The touch screen is fine for certain games, but for most it just sucks. Maybe Sony will change the trend with their new experia, but until proper controllers are available for the phone, it will always be what you use when you don't have access to a good gaming system.
Your chances of dieing if you play high school football are noticeably higher than your chances of dieing from not getting the chickenpox vaccine. Of course, that might be more of a commentary on the the vaccine than football, so, nevermind.
...a red-top tabloid which publishes crap like this every day. It's readership are one step up from an amoeba. There's not much more to expect than this.
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Must be true. My study proved it.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That said, sadly this is the first generation I have completely skipped a handheld release with no real intention of getting one at all.
If you're saying these iOS and Android devices have high-quality, high-selling games, then I don't see how you can say they aren't handheld gaming devices, at least by your usage.
The counter to that is generally an uneducated response that android and ios games lack the depth of the Sony and Nintendo offerings but they are there if you look for them even in the RPG genre that Nintendo is famous for.
Well, I have an unused iPod Touch that I could use some recommendations for. Since you specifically mention RPGs, is there anything similar to Golden Sun or Dissidia that I'd be interested in? I'm not a platform "fanboy" by any means; if it's a good game, I'll play it.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised with people saying mobile games lack depth if you give PvZ or WoG as an example of what the platform has to offer (which both are, by the way, also available for consoles and PC).
Doesn't the 3DS basically have a "depth" slider which, at the lowest setting, entirely turns off the 3D effect and can also give increased battery life/refresh rate? Everybody concerned could just turn it off.
...or pictures of Samantha Fox in her prime.
Same results. BAN PAGE 3! You could have a heart attack.
Idiocy in its purest form.
All we need now is for the Sun to do an article on the bad journalism of Slashdot and we don't have to wait for 2012 for the world to be sucked into a black hole created the LHC.
Journalism, its dead has not been exaggerated.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Hmph..maybe this will make them release Skyward Sword faster...
I've played it for two or three hours at a stretch (ignoring Nintendo's "our lawyers made us say this" warning to take a break every half hour). I can sort of tell that my eyes are doing something different, probably because of the convergence/focus disparity; it feels a bit like looking at one of those "Magic Eye" pictures, but it certainly doesn't hurt or give me a headache. In any case, there is a control, and you can adjust the 3D effect to whatever level is comfortable, or even none at all (I generally have it at max).
"Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this!"
"Then don't do that!"
Sorry should have clarified...my statement about depth was more in regards to things like Zenonia (1 and 2), Sacred Odyssey, Aralon, Neuroshima Hex, etc. But as for casual gaming i would put things like Espgaluda II, Pix ‘n Love Rush, Touch Grind, Contract Killer, Castle Warriors, Real Racing or Samurai 2 against most anything on the the other handhelds. Then there are games that started on other platforms but made a great transition...GTA Chinatown Wars, Street Fighter IV, Dead Space, Chaos Rings, Phoenix Wright, etc. While I agree the PSP was mainly designed for long gaming sessions (Which imho is why it came in last) the DS was highly slanted towards pick up and play type games. As for the physical media part...psp minis (many of which have actually been ported from ios) has shown they just dont get it...fieldrunners for instance is priced at 2x that of the ios version. Peggle on the DS was $30 on ios $2.99 and could have easily been a DS downloadable game. Size is a bit of a myth as well...the largest DS game was 512mb, the largest i have seen on the ipad was over a gig (Rage and Dead Space). 90% of PSP games have been well under 1gig as well.
I have no desire to see Sony or Nintendo fail, I just think the game is changing and dedicated handhelds are going to be harder sell to the masses, as a parent I can buy an ipod touch for $50-$75 less than a 3ds and its likely NGP will have an even bigger price gap, couple that with an average game price of a buck or two and its not hard to see ios making a severe dent in the market.
My point was that there are games with depth if you look for them, most handheld gamers simply point to angry birds and claim everything on the iphone and ipad is a casual game without even bothering to see whats actually available (thats what I mean by uneducated). IMHO the proper controls argument is a bit like the people who dismissed the Wii with the same argument...in the end it didn't matter mainly because there are far more casual gamers than hardcore ones to cater to. That said, I've found that if done well "virtual controls" can work great...take SF IV for the iphone...for virtual controls they are fantastic but do take some practice to get used to, most "hardcore" gamers rather than feel like a "newb" choose to dismiss it as crap. There are also bluetooth based controllers finally starting to emerge, icade for instance will be out in around 8 weeks, though who knows how much support it will get because again the real money is in the masses.
Sure how about zenonia 1 and 2, Rimelands, Across Age DX, Hybrid Eternal Whisper and Hybrid 2 are great for JRPG style RPG's. Ravensword or Aralon are great for western rpg style. For hack and slash diablo'ish games there are things like Solomon's Keep, Dungeon Hunter and Sacred Odyssey. And then of course there are the Square games like FF and Chaos Rings.
My examples of PvZ and WoG were simply about quality and polish...
They are few and far between because the touch screen is really quite limited. You may want to believe that the problem is lack of familiearty, but the actual problem is that the screens have no tactile feedback, so it is too easy to remove your fingers from the 'buttons' if you are playing a button style game, and you fingers are covering the screen for other types of games. This works fine for checkers, chess and most physics games but for any kind of arcade game it stinks.
Bluetooth based controllers are here today. On Android search for WiiMoteController. It lets you use the WiiMote as a controller. It also support the Wii Classic controller. It works great.
What? i do not see how it can increase your blood pressure at all lol it is just a game at the end of the day and that is all you have to remember :D.You can always chill out from gaming at http://www.ro2.biz/register.php?ref=skybluesam1