April is here and that means the end of Q1 2010, so now is a good time to check on a few of our 2010 Predictions. For starters, a quick recap of what I predicted for 2010:
- Fermi makes it’s release date of Q1 2010
- 3D TV Doesn’t hit it big in the home
- Real-time Ray Tracing is big
- Console News
Three months in, and let’s see how we’re doing.
With Q1 down, the biggest milestone is check is the first one: The Release of Fermi. Looks like I was right on this one, they did hit their Q1 Release date on paper. Announced at PAX EAST 2 weeks ago, at 5PM on a Friday, they just barely made their Q1 release date. However, only a few cards have trickled out with none available for sale, Amazon shows 6 available for ‘pre-order’, with no delivery date. NVidia claims cards will begin to appear in retail outlets later this month, although it’s expected quantities will be small.
The other prediction worth talking about is the invasion of 3D TV to the home. I still believe that it won’t make mass penetration in 2010, but we are beginning to see some signs of movement from the industry. Where Sony seemed to take the lead in bringing HDTV to the masses, 3D TV is currently being pushed hardest (and most successfully) by Samsung. To my knowledge, Samsung is the only provider to have a “kit bundle” where you can get a nice discount on a combined purchase of everything you need for 3D at home (Large 3D HDTV, BluRay Player, Shutter Glasses, and even a good movie), and this weekend I saw the first television commercials advertising it. While these commercials are rating high for companies, I still don’t agree with the analyst’s assessments that this means 3D is going to be HUGE in the home. At least not in 2010.
This doesn’t seem to be deterring the content companies however, who are still planning 3D events. Comcast will be broadcasting the upcoming Masters Tournament in 3D, which is a decent draw by itself. Combined with the return of Tiger Woods after his recent scandal, and it should be good publicity for the fledgling technology. Comcast isn’t alone, tho, and their single major event is being one-upped by DirectTV, who plans to bring the entire ESPN network in 3D to its viewers.
No doubt several companies are still trying to figure out how to implement stereoscopic footage into their workflows. Not only is it a technical problem (working with interlaced or split-screen configurations, double the footage, synchronization, etc) but an artistic one as well (working with depth of field in 3D is tricky, to say the least). This month’s NAB2010 conference will undoubtedly be full of companies hawking their stereoscopic wares, so stay tuned for lots of press releases in the next week or two related to that.
The other two items on the list, have not materialized much. News on console hardware came from a surprising source, the Nintendo DS, with the rumors of an announcement of a 3D Nintendo DS at E3 this year. News of hardware included in an upcoming Wii, PS4, or Xbox hasn’t materialized yet. There also has not been much news of Realtime ray-tracing, yet. As the Fermi card has just come out, there hasn’t been significant push for it. Nvidia will probably begin to push it harder once the card achieves some market reach, and game publishers will start to implement it once enough of the higher-end ATI and NVidia cards are in their customer’s hands.
So, after the first 3 months of 2010, my predictions are still standing strong. I don’t have anything to add right now, but I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
