Industry Gamers did a great interview with Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello about the upcoming E3 conference and what we have to look forward to. Suffice to say, it’s great to see Electronic Arts taking an active interest in 3D gaming!
Here is the excerpt:
IG: I’m just curious to see what you think about 3D, if that’s going to be the next revolution in this industry or not.
JR: First off, I will tell you that a great 3D game experience is a truly wonderful thing. I was playing a title we’ve got for fiscal 2012 in 3D yesterday up in Vancouver and it was definitely unbelievably cool. I think that before you see a revolution you have to have an army, and right now there’s like twelve people in America with 3D television sets, and they’re not exactly an army. (Laughter). So, the masses need to rise. The first thing you need for a large installed base is 3D televisions and 3D PCs. I think they’ll come over the course of the next two to three years in large numbers. Samsung and Sony are certainly putting a lot of weight behind that and you’ll see that play itself out. I don’t think it’s going to be a big story this year for games; some particular titles are going to play it out. I am a little nervous that some game companies will put out poorly authored 3D content, sort of just put it together, because look, all games, most nearly all games are 3D already. It doesn’t take that much to separate, you know, two and a half inches and sort of redraw the entire frame and have it run through any of the various polarization or the primary blinking system between the right and left eye. It’s quite a different thing to author it in such a way that the “Z-dimension,” the third dimension, is really well done. When it’s not really well done, it’s a new kind of headache that you haven’t ever experienced. So I’m actually a little afraid this year that we’re going to get less than well-authored content and it’s going to be one of those stories: video games give me a migraine. I think that over time, probably in the course of 2011, 2012, the strongest publishers will author some great content, the installed base will be there, and there will be a good positive growth spurt. I just don’t think it will be this year.
IG: On a related matter, I almost sort of separate this out, have you seen Nintendo’s 3DS personally? Have you actually had a chance? Have they given you access?
JR: It’s like one of these things here where with Nintendo where you’ve got to be very careful here because they’ve got a lot to say at E3, and I want to be careful to not accidentally transgress an NDA. I will tell you, I’ve seen it; it’s cool.
ADDED BONUS! Electronic Arts is a member of The S-3D Gaming Alliance, so clearly they are taking this seriously.