Touching Arcade Machines With 3D Displays

By Spencer . January 8, 2009 . 1:33pm

Back at the Asia Game Show a small booth, hidden far from Sony which practically owned the show, had some arcade machines with 3D monitors. The game pictured on the right was a shooter, sort of like Space Invaders with chickens… chickens in rockets. Another game was like bejeweled, but instead of a flat grid the pieces were stuck to a 3D object you spun around by touching the screen.

Galaxy Puzzle was their “best” game, but neither game was any good. To be fair both of these games appeared to be demos rather than polished products. Anyway, it was neat to play them even though I got a headache from shooting technologically superior chickens. Obviously, 3D chicken shooting isn’t going to be a mega hit, but this technology could be used to make an awesome ghost shooting light gun game.

Photo credit Spencer/Siliconera.

TAGS: Arcade, Asia Game Show

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Tatsu

I don't really get it... it has a real 3D effect without the use of glasses? I'm curious how good the range of depth is and if it still works when standing at a different angle. Any idea where I can find more information on this technology?

Spencer

@Tatsu - Yeah, 3D without glasses. I wish I knew how it worked, but from my analysis it has two screens on top of each other with a different image. The range of depth isn't that great, but it works standing at some other angles. If you look at it from 45 degrees though you may not get the depth effect.

I think the company was called China3D or something like that or maybe it was china3Dgame (?).

Tatsu

Thanks for the info you've supplied. I'm just amazed at how under-the-radar this technology is. Meanwhile, over at CES this week there are two major "breakthroughs" in 3D technology -- which still requires the use of special glasses! Siliconera is the only place I've even heard about these arcade machines, so I appreciate the coverage.

(Stereoscopy has been a big interest of mine for a few years now. In fact, I recently won some tickets to the Montreal International Game Summit from a game I submitted using traditional red/cyan anaglyphic effects.)