Nintendo Co. issued a warning that children under the age of six shouldn’t play three-dimensional games on its coming hand-held game machine, saying that looking at 3-D images for a long period of time can hurt the growth of young children’s eyes.

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The company posted the disclaimer at the bottom of a website promoting a three-day event in Japan at which people can try the Nintendo 3DS, which is due to be released Feb. 26 in Japan. The company says children six-years-old and younger should play games in two-dimensional mode.

“For children under the age of six, looking at 3-D images for a long time could possibly have a negative impact on the growth of their eyes,” Nintendo said on its Japanese-language site for the event. The company also warned that users should take breaks every 30 minutes when playing games in 3-D and stop playing immediately if they feel ill.

Nintendo’s new handheld device, the 3DS, will feature games that can be played in 3-D without the use of glasses. Nintendo has warned that children under the age of 6 should not play such games as they could be harmful to the development of their eyes.

The warning is similar to those made by other makers of 3-D consumer-electronics products. Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. all provide warnings on their websites about the possible risks of viewing 3-D images for children younger than six.

Nintendo has had more success than its competitors with adolescents and younger children, though it is unclear what age group the company will target with the 3DS.

The Nintendo 3DS is the company’s most-anticipated videogame hardware product since the Wii fullsize console in 2006. The hand-held 3DS will allow users to play 3-D games without using special glasses. Most 3-D technologies create the illusion of depth on a flat screen by presenting different images to the left and right eyes, typically using special glasses. But Nintendo is offering that effect with the display alone, using a technology called autostereoscopic 3-D.

The 3DS allows the user to adjust the level of 3-D effect on the games played on the machine.
WSJ