While I was looking online, I found an article about the Nintendo 3DS set to be released on March 27th. Then I searched videos on it to see what it really was. My brother has the Nintendo DSi which I have played on before, but I did not know that they were taking hand-held games to this level. The first thing that I thought of after seeing the video was the fact that so many movies these days are coming out in 3D. Some can even be bought in 3D on DVD. There are new tv’s that enhance any 3D movie or show.
In class we talked about how games copied literature and cinema by adding a story line to many games in order to become a recognized kind of entertainment when the gaming world was just starting out. Gaming today has been established as entertainment for all ages because of how games have adapted to popular culture. So I think this is another way the gaming world is trying to keep up with the times and compete with cinema as the top form of entertainment.
I think at this point its a little difficult to tell whether the game industry is driven by innovations in the film industry or if its the other way around. The money made on console games has already exceeded box office revenue for movies. Plus when it comes to 3D environments games have been ahead of movies for a while now. In both movies and games you see the environment through a 2D interface, but in filming the setting is flat. You can’t swing the camera around in a movie and go around the corner to see what it looks like. Games have a 2D interface that allows you to enter a 3D world.
It is interesting how the different mediums compete with each other, and I think movies are ahead of games in creating a 3D interface to interact with the world. I’m just not sure if this is the movie industry playing catch-up with the already-existent 3D worlds of games, or if it is innovation above and beyond what games have yet achieved.