Oh, they've got more than that, for sure.
Companies like Apple and Nintendo have access to pretty much all commercially viable consumer electronics technology. Nintendo has lots of experience with 3D display technology, it's not their first rodeo, that's for sure. They know what works (basically nothing long-term) and what doesn't (all the stuff they have tried themselves). I'm sure their engineers have tried all other consumer VR/3D display tech, everything from Mattel View-Master, Google Cardboard, PlayStation VR, Steam VR, to Apple Vision Pro, and beyond.
For something like 3D image projection there are lots of well known challenges, problems that have been heavily documented for decades.
The image projection works best for certain eyes and certain distances, generally when the display is in the center of the vision. This is a major reason why both 3D movie theaters and 3D televisions failed. They don't work well for people on the periphery. The 3D image is best viewed by the person seated in the middle, a certain distance from the screen. There are other issues like interpupillary distance, etc. that VR HMD projection has to contend with.
On a consumer device like a handheld gaming console, you can't really expect the end user to make a bunch of tweaks in some control panel until they get an image that "feels better" to them than the factory settings. So a lot of assumptions are made about what sort of eyes are viewing the image. I probably adjusted the settings on my Oculus Rift S over twenty times when I bought 6-7 years ago and some things still don't look right. Some of the settings in the content itself vary so I really need to tweak the eye settings for each content change (video, game, whatever). That's not going to fly with Joe Consumer. So eventually I just stopping trying to readjust things every time.
So today I just basically don't expect to spend more than 40-45 minutes during a typical VR HMD session. That's really all I can take.
The fact that 3D display technology ended up being a bust for Nintendo 3DS was completely unsurprising. I haven't tried Samsung's new 3D display technology, but they have to solve a bunch of issues (and not just the ones briefly mentioned here) for there to be any chance of having Joe Consumer come back to it day after day, week after week.
In the end, content is always king. You can't just take 2D content and make it believable 3D content. However to justify the increased production costs of generating 3D content, you really need a market that is sufficiently large and enthusiastic about returning for that 3D content. Not convinced that audience exists right now.
It's one thing to look at some 3D image for a few minutes. It's something completely different to get someone to watch a two-hour 3D movie and get up with no other discomfort other than some stiff legs or back (just like they sat through a 2D movie). And yeah, that movie still needs to be good on its own. A bunch of 3D effects isn't going to carry any title. Gratuitous technology always ends up losing in the long run.
