This is still the best damn thing ever to me. And yes, I agree totally that head tracking & that illusion of depth is a bigger thing for gaming than "COMES OUTTA MAH SCREEN" 3D.
That's only if you weave around while playing, though. Sooner or later, you'll stop caring, sit still, and the effect is negligible. There is no illusion of depth to the image itself, the illusion is created only by how the image responds to your movements. Further, if you're remaining seated at an appropriate distance from your TV, there's only so much extra sight you gain through such a method; it's not like, say, head-tracking on a computer monitor where the display is two or three feet from your face. The further the display is from you, the less of an effect you're getting (ie: if you want a wider view out a window, you need to stand close to the window). Plus it only works with a single person in the room.
Therein lies the problem with 3D televisions. Every viewer is sitting at a different perspective. Meaning you MUST either give every viewer their own adjustment to the display (glasses), or limit your number of viewers to one. I don't see that ever taking off. The "HEY, WE HAVE A GLASSESLESS 3D TV" marketing might get some respectable cash but it'll never catch any mass-market appeal if it doesn't actually work for more than one individual. Handhelds, phones, desktops, laptops, they could be cool. TVs in the living room? No.
Head-tracking 3D is an interesting concept, though, particularly in how it relates to the 3DS. Recall, if you will, the 3DS has a player-facing camera, and has already shown head-tracking tech demos in Nintendogs. So one would think such a 3D display method would be possible on the 3DS, and it would go a long ways into reconciling gyroscopic controls with 3D imagery (an issue which has been brought up on a few gaming websites). The stereoscopic effect is probably much easier to code for, though, and face recognition/tracking would have to be smooth enough that the image doesn't lag behind you (for all the bitching about the extra drain on resources that is in reality just a 2-player split-screen for your eyes, this would probably consume a lot more). Plus it depends on how well-lit the room you're playing in is. Note that the YouTube Wii demo doesn't go into what happens with IR interference or when your head goes off-camera; and if you hated these issues with your Wii pointer, just imagine the entire screen suffering for it. So there are downsides to that approach as well, but I do wonder if some devs will pursue it for the viewing angle benefits.
The best explanation of what's wrong with 3D.
Awesome.
In a way, he's giving 3D too much credit; you can still turn the smurfs to see their backs.
I see what you, and the critics, are saying with film: 3D visuals will only give a "pop-up book" effect, provided of course that the visuals are still being processed as 2D images + depth. This applies to all film (we don't have holo-recorders yet; you're always subject to the camera angle of the recording device) and sprite-based games (the NES/SNES 3D remakes demoed at E3). In an actual, polygonal 3D game, however, where the entire surface is rendered and you can thus freely change the camera angle, it's a bit better.
Still a gimmick, though. It's Nintendo's next handheld, I'd buy it if it was a brick with an etch-a-sketch embedded in it, so long as I retain the hope that I'll someday see a Yoshi on it. The 3D is just something for me to show off.