Stephen E. Dinehart IV is a game maker and creator that - prior to the formal reveal of the Nintendo Switch - outlined his involvement in developing for the system; he's now shared an interesting article titled 'Evolution - Nintendo & VR', in which he outlines a history of Nintendo innovation and makes some intriguing remarks.
Putting aside the debatable assertion he makes that the Virtual Boy was a VR device - we consider it more an early attempt at 3D displays - the following segments are particularly notable (bold emphasis has been added).
As a Nintendo developer and fan few things get me as excited as the launch of new platforms - yep, hardware. In an age of virtual goods Nintendo develops products and platforms that people love to hold. The reveal coming later this week is sure to surprise old fans and new alike.
...It only seems natural with the launch of Nintendo's new platform The Switch, a modular HD game console, that VR would be on the product roadmap. Given the right specs, ones yet disclosed, there's no reason VR peripherals wouldn't show for the system and just maybe something more. As a Nintendo and VR/AR developer I can't say much, but I can say the fit is one made in heaven....In fact, Nintendo was the first into the 3D market, dare I say VR/AR, with their Nintendo 3DS - still the best selling video game console of all time.
Nintendo has arguably always been ahead of the curve starting with the global game boom of the late 1800's. With R&D periods that span decades and the launch of a new powerful console, the Nintendo Switch, it's only natural that one of the first players in the home VR market would once again stake its claim.
Now as part of the Nintendo team few moments in my life as an emerging tech developer have filled me with so much anticipation - this is one step in evolution you won't want to miss.
They are some interesting remarks. It does look like the Switch will have a Virtual Reality accessory at some point due to a patent that emerged late last year, and this article from Dinehart IV is the latest to add weight to that assertion. His remarks are certainly intriguing; his 3DS remark about its sales is inaccurate, it should be noted.
Let us know what you think of this, and whether you'd like to see VR and or AR (augmented reality) in this week's Nintendo Switch Presentation.
As a side-note, the LinkedIn article has indeed used our April Fools' mock-up from 2014 - fun times.
With thanks to ThanosReXXX for the heads up.
[source linkedin.com]
Comments 80
3DS is the best selling console of all time? I guess he's factoring in DS sales too because the original DS holds that crown with the PS2 right next to it.
Thanks for posting, @ThomasBW84
And he sure does make some interesting statements there.
The rest of the article is also quite interesting to all those wanting a quick trip down memory lane or the entire history of Nintendo in general.
Chega logo sexta-feira...
@wiggleronacid Actually, the PS2 holds the crown for some time now while the DS is the second.
Source: http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/
But, I would at least say that there lies an unfair competition as the 3DS basically killed the DS sales day 1 because of retro compatibility and the PS3 on other hand continued to encourage PS2 buying because of the oposite.
@wiggleronacid Yeah, he must have been counting DS/3DS. That threw me off too, lol
honestly I can't see anything happening for a long long time.. it's just not tech people want to use actively.. the cost barrier is still extremely high and a lot of people get sick from it.. they aren't going down this road..
My head is going to explode from too much hype. I truly think I'm on the verge of an aneurysm.
Tomorrow can't come soon enough!
Umm there are some massive mistakes in this article... 3DS best selling system of all time??.... and guys did you know that the gaming boom started late 1800s??? I didn't! 😂
VR is already sinking into the quagmire of forgotten video game peripherals, it'll take a lot to pull it free now.
I think the 3ds best selling comment could really be in reference to the 3ds being the best selling 3d/AR type hardware of all time. Because in context, they are only talking about VR/ar/3d, etc
@Great_Gonzalez They were quoting the developer. Quotes should not be changed even if they contain mistakes.
I don't really care for VR, I get nauseous easily. Holographic projections would be much more my style. 😎
I hope all this excitement isn't just PR talk. I still don't think the whole "switching" between handheld and console mode is the only thing the Switch has to offer, based on things like this and other things we've heard in the past, like people from Nintendo saying you need to hold the system in your hands to truly experience it/understand what it is.
Uhh tbh, if we are talking about vr i am not intersted. I was more intersted in the hololens micrsoft showed off at e3, although idk how much u can do with that besides Minecraft
@Niinbendo perfecccttttt!!
@Flauber Well the 3DS DID enter AR with the 3DS, that's what those little cards that come packed with it were for (they were AR cards). Arguably you could make a case that the Virtual Boy was a form of Virtual Reality... you put it up against your face & played in a 3D space. This is what was happening elsewhere in the world at the time with VR but with colour graphics.
I actually played a VR game in an arcade during the late 90's that was graphically an N64 game played in a 3D space. Oddly enough they'd fixed the motion sickness in that arcade cabinet better than most modern VR headsets.
If there's any hope of VR with this first Switch tablet, the display panel must be 1080p and 90Hz, lest it be vomit inducing and blurry as English Fog.
Could VR work with a 60Hz panel..?
@Moshugan Lol, must admit that fog has never made me vomit before (I know what you meant).
Not sure about needing 1080p for the screen though, most smartphone VR solutions actually output in 720p when used for VR despite them having high pixel density. It's not the sharpness of the screen that makes people vomit... it's how badly the developer handles motion sickness. You could have an 8k screen for each eye & a bad dev will still empty your stomach.
@Niinbendo Too early. It's not 24 hours left yet, it's 34. I have the image on standby myself.
Don't think it will have VR unless Nintendo fancy a return to NES visuals. The graphics would be too pixelated on a 720p screen unless they can work some of their famous magic.
Well he certainly praises Nintendo. But what I want to know is what video games were around in the late 1800s...
I have commented just recently on the possibility there is more to the switch that we haven't seen yet. Maybe?
For all of you having questions or that are wrongfully ridiculing the article for the "mistakes" it contains, please check out the original article to get the entire story and some much needed context:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/evolution-nintendo-vr-stephen-e-dinehart-iv
And Dinehart is a BIG name in the industry, with a LOT of experience, so if he says something, it's more than likely that we won't be needing as much salt as with other "rumors".
And let's not forget that he himself is actually working with Nintendo now, so if anything, he's in the know...
I want to play all the Metroid Prime's in VR please!!!
@Darkwario1 Well they were a card game company at the start. I'm sure he meant that. He never said video game.
@ThanosReXXX To be fair, the article DOES mention the gaming boom in the late 1800s in the same context as powerful hardware. That's likely a typo or a badly constructed paragraph, but taken as written it does seem a little silly.
I doubt nintendo will do vr but if they do i wont buy it because of motion sickness.
I've been binge watching Games Master from Series 1 on YouTube recently and they showed a lot of VR back then as it was seen as the next big thing. One of the challenges was even a VR game. This was back in 1992/1993. Obviously that never happened. I wonder if this new range of VR devices will finally break into the mainstream? I've not used any of them yet, no desire to buy them but I'd like to give it a go.
@DanteSolablood Yeah, that more than likely is a typo indeed. Nevertheless, it does NOT discount all the other things he has said and hints at. All I am saying is that he should be taken quite a bit more seriously than all these other rumor mongers, if only for his reputation in the industry and his globally recognized expertise on the topic of narrative and interactive media, amongst which currently also AR/VR.
@GravyThief It's an interesting thought as I was around when VR was everywhere. There was no real problem with VR at the time that killed it... it was a fad much like 3D TVs were a couple of years ago. It just dropped out of popular interest.
@ThanosReXXX Oh I'd never discount someone over a typo when their wider point is actually quite interesting. However, it's understandable for younger people to pick up on something like that. They still have a lifetime of mistakes to look forward to.
Ugh.. No VR for me. >_<
@Niinbendo There's still 34 hours remaining.
But in all seriousness, VR died the second it stepped out of the bunker, with bullets continually hitting it to this day.
That "I can't say much" says all we need to know, alongside comments about Nintendo's R&D team.
What if they found a way to implement VR in a non vomit inducing way without needing a 1080p screen? Coming from the people that made 3D without glasses, it could be a possibility.
Still, it isn't very attractive to me - I would have love that they focus more on AR than VR.
@DanteSolablood But is it really understandable or is it the nowadays so inexplicably popular "glass half empty" culture? I'm not really sure, old and forgetful as I am, I keep mixing them up in my mind...
To all people so vehemently opposed to VR:
Even if it IS coming to Switch, it'll probably not be something obligatory, so if it doesn't appeal to you, then just don't buy it, simple.
Like AR, don`t like VR so much.
Once you get into the technicalities of what constitutes AR and VR, then the line between them so thin that the difference between them is virtually irrelevant, and you'd actually realise that there is far more AR/VR already in gaming than you might realise... which makes discussion about it kind of pointless.
@DragonEleven Care to elaborate on that? Other than the 3DS, I can't remember the last time I've experienced any AR in the games I've played, let alone VR.
New virtual boy xl confirmed LOL
@Darkwario1 Carriage Racing X
Uhhh... hype overkill, or preemptive April Fools Day 2017 strike?
@ThanosReXXX Well there was Invizimals for the PSP which used AR animals via an camera, Pokémon Go & Ingress are both AR, you could probably count a few of the Playstation Move & 360 Konnect games as basic VR as well... it's a little more pervasive than many people think. Though I doubt it's so wide spread that you could just "ignore it.
As for VR, since it died in the 90s it's not really had any notable uses up until the Oculus Kickstarter. Unless someone found a way of strapping a 3DS to their face & playing that Head game..
@ThanosReXXX The VR/AR thing is because VR places you within a virtual reality, but because you're still located in the physical reality while you use it, what it is actually doing is just augmenting the virtual reality onto your perception of the physical reality, which is AR.
And basically any sort of motion control augments an element of a virtual reality onto the physical reality... it's just down to how you perceive what is actually going on.
Tomorrow is not coming fast enough!!
@DanteSolablood Although I appreciate your input, I don't think that is what he meant, and if it is, then it is hardly relevant, since most of those are only from recent years and hardly constitute there being "far more AR/VR already in gaming than you might realize" and in my view, and probably many others' as well, there are actually quite a few very distinct differences between AR and VR that absolutely do NOT make the difference "virtually irrelevant". The most important difference being AR is always superimposed upon actual reality, whereas VR is all about being all around you and having you being completely immersed in the game's own world.
The higher immersion is also due to AR's superimposed images often times given the impression that the objects are floating in the real world environments, whereas VR gives a much more solid impression, even though the graphics themselves are obviously less life like...
@Moshugan
60 hz would work fine. Most tvs have been 60 hz for a long time. Many budget tvs are still 60 hz today and they claim a motion rate of 120 which is basically marketing jargon. True 120 hz was necessary for 3d content because each eye only saw every other frame resulting in each seeing 60 fps. With vr there is a physical divider so each eye has its own screen.
I WAS SO THERE AT THE TIME OF THE GAME BOOM IN THE LATE 1800's !
@DragonEleven Well, no offense but that is incorrect, and as you may have seen, I already addressed some points in comment #49. To add to that: AR and VR have quite a few distinct dare I say MAJOR differences, and it's definitely not both just a case of "augmenting the virtual reality onto your perception of the physical reality".
And of course you're still located in the same physical reality, but one of the two enhances that reality, while the other isolates you in its own reality, which again, is a MAJOR difference.
Knowing that you are still where you are regardless of this experience is completely irrelevant and no designation whatsoever of VR and AR being more or less the same.
@ThanosReXXX "Although I appreciate your input" The polite way of saying "get the f/// back in your box."
Having read @DragonEleven's reply it seems it was more a misunderstanding of the distinct differences & benefits/drawbacks to either technology. If you're loose enough with your semantics you can make any two things sound the same. After all, we're all just people. The difference is irrelevant.
The April Fool's mock up is mentioned three times in this article. Blowing smoke up one's own rear end, much?
@DanteSolablood No, I'm not that type of person. More a "mean what I say and say what I mean" type, so unless there's a smiley with a tongue poking out following a sentence, then it was sincere. We may not always agree, but I do appreciate our discussions. At least you've got a brain and know how to use it, something of a rarity in many online communities nowadays, but fortunately, NLife seems to be one of those communities were multiple of these kind of people can be found, so I'm quite content to stick around here for a bit longer...
As for the difference being irrelevant: try explaining that to an experienced AR user who all of a sudden bumps into stuff when using VR because he has been told that there is virtually no difference between the two...
All in all, I think I can easily come up with at least 5 clear differences between the two techs, some of which I've already mentioned. The floaty bit I mentioned earlier is what annoys me the most personally, about AR, and in the 3DS's AR games, it put me off more than once, because it oftentimes interrupted my game and the immersion therein, because I wasn't looking at the right angle. VR virtually knows none of these same issues, since it naturally follows the wearer's viewpoint and displays it accordingly.
@ThanosReXXX Lol, I was teasing. Also I was making a joke with "we're all people so the difference between us are irrelevant". My jokes can be so dry at times they're invisible. My bad!
@cleveland124 I'm not convinced that 60Hz is enough.
All major VR devices, Vive, Rift and PS VR, have a 90Hz panel. The reason for preferred high framerates in VR is precisely to counter motion sickness.
@DanteSolablood Or it's just me being old and needing smileys as visual aids for people's jokes and/or sarcasm.
Plain text can be so multi-interpretable sometimes, I even re-read most of my own comments 2 to 3 times before I finally post them, just to make sure they can't be misunderstood, and I STILL fail to succeed at times...
@DanteSolablood And besides being old, I'm apparently doing the selectively blind thing as well, since you obviously DID use a smiley already... Oh, well...
@setezerocinco também mal consigo esperar. O problema é o horário.
@Spoony_Tech Metroid Prime in VR would be my favorite thing ever. Oh man...
VR? Oh you mean wearing a screen on your face? Yeah I'll pass.
Wow, bold words! I don't particularly care about VR, but if the Switch brought it on board I would buy it for sure.
@Moshugan
You're looking at specs though not individual game performance. Sony has said they will reject vr games running at less than 60 fps. Now I don't know which games run at 60 fps but that seems to be the minimum.
Bring it on. I will be the first to buy
@NintendoFan4Lyf I forgot about those models, anyway as yourself mentioned, the feature was removed of basically most PS3s sold. You do have to remember that with the initial popularity of the Wii, PS3 took some years to start selling well as did the 360, for that reason those specific models were not sold enough and are quite rare, therefore my point stands strong.
The Mario 64 VR demo on the Rift is still the only selling point to me for VR! If Nintendo would carry on that to a full game, oh boy!
But I would think flipping around would make even a freerunner feel sick.
@Niinbendo So? Dawn of the 12th =/= Afternoon of the 12th
Game boom of the late 1800's?
Who is this guy exactly and what games had he made?
Sounds like he definitely knows something, hype levels activated
here's my prediction: there will be two switch SKUs
a budget switch with 720p screen
a premium switch with 1080p screen (otherwise same specs) and the VR headset frame included. normal games in portable mode will run in 720p upscaled to 1080p while VR games run in 1080p but switch needs to be connected to a power source while in VR mode
@Great_Gonzalez Well Nintendo started late 1800s and they've made all sorts of popular games.
I feel sorry for all the people before that who didn't have games of any sort apparently.
@Darkwario1 "games", not "video games", and it's Hanafuda
@Niinbendo I'll let this one go...
But there's a difference between a few minutes and half a day.
To everyone that replied to me @spoony_tech @Nintendoforlife @Nintendo_Thumb Ohhhh, ok, haha, guess I thought in the article he was saying the gaming rise as in video games, not the cards. My bad 😛
@ThanosReXXX @DanteSolablood I thought he was referencing Hanafuda card gaming at first... Lol
@Niinbendo OH NO...
We need the 4 giants! Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma, Genyo Takeda, and Tatsumi Kimishima... HAAAAAALP! We need the stability of the 3DS combined with the strength of the Tegra Tiger! We need Twilight so we can tell the Moon that it falling on us and killing everyone is still a better love story!
i don't think vr will be the future of nintendo but i would love to see there take on it. it would be really exciting for me if they showed it off a bit at the presentation.
JonTron, could you answer for me, please?
Thank you Jon.
This is garbage
@PlywoodStick That could also be an option. Throw in saucy games at love hotels as well, while you're at it...
@Savino It's my belief that they will only do something if they can make it work to a satisfactory level. They won't half-ass VR as they are aware that the space has the potential to be lucrative as well as highly competitive.
I like the idea of VR. I think it could be a nice addition to an already great concept of the switch, some people would like it others would hate it but it would only be a small part of what Nintendo will be offering with the switch, if they offer it at all.
Worth a read, thanks! Virtual reality is our future that's already here, indeed! Can I repost it on my blog
<a href=»http://buildvrsoft.com/»>buildvrsoft.com</a> leaving a link to you as an author?
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