Opinion: My eyes and the Nintendo 3DS

My verdict on what the 3DS does to my eyes and not assumptions about everyone elses

Seems like it’s the cool thing to write an article these days about how much the Nintendo 3DS is or is not hurting your eyes. Nearly every single blog who’s gotten their hands on the hardware from Japan has had their opinion. Some of these opinions have ranged from no troubles at all to even condemning the 3D mode to hell. No, that’s not a joke.

The fact is what 90% (scientifically proven by me) of these opinion pieces fail to mention or make note of is that everyone’s experience with the 3D mode of the Nintendo 3DS will be different. Just because you find the systems 3D mode good, doesn’t mean that the person sitting right next to you will. I know that sounds like something you probably know but some people are just not getting it.

Everyone’s experience will be different, some positive and others negative.

So how does the 3D affect me? That’s the title of this editorial after all. This week has been a full on week for me and I’ve had two ’experiences’ with the console in the week of having owned one. The first is that the 3D mode has had absolutely no effect on my eyes at all. Now I’ve played this console everywhere in order to test this; in the car, in bed, everywhere.

However there is one thing that has given me ’eye strain’ or ’sore eyes’ while playing the 3DS and that is a lack of sleep. Since it’s been GDC week (oh and that Apple keynote, thanks Jobs) I’ve been up twice this week past 3am and all I can say is – when I played the Nintendo 3DS with an extreme lack of sleep, the results are not good. I did get tired and I could feel my eyes working harder to achieve the 3D effect. The second experience is that Ive had absolutely no problems at all. The 3D effect works and I dont feel tired at all.

Now that being said, you, everyone you know and everyone you don’t know will have a different opinion on this – no two people will have the exact same eyes. It’s just that some people like to broadly generalise their experience to being the equivalent of the general populace. Sorry it just doesnt work that way.

Thankfully if the 3D effect is troubling to you, you can turn it off or down until you’re happy. Yes, you are turning off one of the major selling points of the console but luckily for you, Nintendo’s included a ton more things in the console that still make it a worthwhile purchase.

Keep an eye out (see what I did there) for our full review of the 3DS later in the week.