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Sony's Solution To Split-Screen Multiplayer
We discussed Sony's E3 announcement of the pricing and details of the Vita portable console (hands-on report), but they also made a stronger push into the 3D space, revealing a 24" display specifically designed for 3D gaming. Most notable about this display is that two players wearing 3D glasses can use it to view separate images on screen. This means that when playing with a friend, you need not sacrifice 50% of screen real estate to accommodate the other player. The Guardian has a good run-down of Sony's other E3 announcements.
I loathe split screen multiplayer, and wish they would come up with a solution giving 2 players the whole screen to work with.
Definite case of "YMMV" there, bud.
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Check this out, you can do it yourself:
"Full screen-split screen with any game."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVJcVPvjUJo
They're using cheap glasses from going to movies with one person having two left lenses and the other two right lenses.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
It's clever but I'm not sure they deserve the kudos for it, I've seen dozens of people suggest this very approach to multiplayer as a useful way to utilise 3D over the past several years (since it reared its head again) - I even remember having a discussion on this very topic with a friend back in '06 (I remember the date as I can remember the project we were working on that spawned the discussion). This is just more evidence that if you're already a global mega-corporation it's much easier to put these ideas into production (and, more importantly, lock everyone else out with IP laws). What I'd like to see is some kind of free to register patent equivalent where regular people with a good idea but without the funds or drive to produce it can donate these more obvious technology applications on an open source basis, meaning any company can use them to create interesting new technology but no one company can own that technology.
I'm assuming without the glasses you'd see both screens superimposed on each other. While it could be annoying, you'd get to follow both players this way.
And if you want to go with one player only, you don't need the glasses. Just blink really really fast. :)
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
It would be in 2D, at least for now. I think if you were going to start splitting into 4 images instead of 2, the flickering would be far too annoying (I tried a 3D Sony TV in one of their stores, and noticed a slight flickering even with 60Hz in each eye). I much prefer polarised 3D to active shutters..
which is totally what she said
So, for once, Sony actually listens to what people want... and you're STILL complaining?
Why when I heard SONY and SOLUTION I immediately thought "They came up with a way to have people who want to play split-screen to pay for two copies of the game instead of one. Some licensing/payment/authentication scheme that enables split-screen only if both players purchased the license."
I know, I know. Don't give them ideas. I hope they don't read Slashdot.
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How about having friends over!
This tech will be useless for that. All your friends would need glasses too, and would only be able to see ONE of the two screens. So it's actually anti-social, excluding your friends compared to a normal game.
As for multiple TVs, I believe the average number of TVs in a household is now above 2. And a games console is going to be cheaper than the glasses needed for this. So what's the problem, again?