3D TV is trying to march into our homes, with Christmas price deals seemingly attracting the masses. But one of the biggest worldwide 3D TV surveys tells a different story – we’re just not that interested… yet.
We’ve mulled over the question of 3D TV adoption before and there’s been one opinion that’s come out on top – ‘I’m not interested in three-dimensional telly’.
In fact our 3D TV poll showed less interest than the results of the Nielsen Company’s worldwide survey. An overwhelming 88% of Which? Conversation readers said they wouldn’t buy a 3D TV in the next 12 months, compared to 33% of Nielsen’s voters.
Nielsen surveyed 27,000 consumers across 53 countries in September of this year – Europe and the United States were least interested.
Lack of interest in 3D TV
Only 9% of European respondents said they’d definitely purchase in the next 12 months or already own a 3D TV. In the States this was even lower, at a measly 5%. For those who ‘probably’ will purchase, the numbers stand at just 9% in Europe and 3% in the US.
For some reason the Nielsen Company isn’t too surprised with these results, but I would have thought that Europe and North America would have been the most interested in 3D. And yet its results suggest that interest is strongest in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
On this side of the pond it looks like we’re being a little savvier. Not only are we waiting for the price to come down, we’re waiting for it to stabilise. In the next few years we’ll no doubt be able to buy better tech for less, and current requirements, like 3D glasses, may have died out.
What type of 3D content will convince us?
So, while we’re using the ‘wait and see’ approach, what type of content are we interested in? Sports and nature programmes come out on top in Nielsen’s research. The latter is something Convo commenter Ym agees with – he thinks ‘some nature programmes are brilliant in 3D’.
However, Dave simply can’t wait for 3D video games, ‘once the TVs become cheaper I’ll be getting one. I just wish I was 10 years old again so I could spend more time gaming over the next few years! It’s going to be great.’
But there are loads of you who think that 3D TV is just a ploy by manufacturers to give us something we don’t want or need. Jeremy sums it up well:
‘To me, the weird thing about 3D is that it’s been an industry-driven innovation, as opposed to a more organic consumer-driven change. The content producers all decided that they’re going 3D and are working hard to convince the public that they want it too.’
And that may be the crux – manufacturers need to do more to convince us that we actually want 3D. Otherwise, it may just pass us by.
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