E3! I almost said “E3 News,” but it’s not really new, is it?

I'm going to talk about what each of the big three put out during this year's mini-E3 and what excites me most!

Microsoft.

I really liked the way Microsoft handled their press conference. Their angle was to show everyone all of the games that will be out by the end of the year. This was them basically giving gamers a real reason to buy a 360 this holiday season by not showing what will be out next year or the year after that, everything they showed (including Xbox Live Arcade titles) will be out before this year's end. Microsoft did a real put-up or shut up show. Some people were disappointed because there were no huge surprise announcements but I came away from the presentation hyped for a ton of games that I'll be able to play by Christmas.

There were a few hardware announcements, including the much-awaited message kit which attaches a full QWERTY keyboard to your controller for in-game chat. This won't be a big deal to me since most of the games I play revolve around voice communication, but anyone who's playing Phantasy Star should be excited. They also showed new colored controllers. Again, not a very exciting announcement but they'll be nice to have I suppose. And finally! Their show stopper as far as hardware announcements go - a new Halo 3 themed Xbox 360 console. It's green with orange trim and has some of the Halo 3 forerunner designs on it. I personally think the thing is ugly as hell and the colors really clash but hey, Halo fans might want to pick it up.

The real highlight was the huge catalog of impressive games they showed off, including Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, Halo 3, Blacksite, Mass Effect, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Assassin's Creed. This only puts a small dent into the list of awesome games coming down the pipe, and as I've said they'll all be out before the year's end. A lot of people are saying that this might be the greatest holiday line-up in the history of gaming, and my wallet agrees.

Sony.

Sony had the most surprise announcements of the bunch. For that reason they had a lot of the attention and therefore stole the show this year. Their major announcements included a (temporary?) price cut for the 60 gig model of the PS3 as well as Killzone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 previews. Killzone and MGS4 are the two games that might be able to get a lot of people to jump on board to buy a PS3 and the price cut helps consumers make that decision even more easily.

The PS3 price drop had been leaked a little while before E3 went down so I don't know how much of a surprise it really was, but to have it confirmed by someone a little more in-the-know than Circuit City was nice. I have to admit that I'm still considering getting one, mostly because of the price cut, but the anemic library of games is still the greatest deterrent. That's where MGS4 and Killzone 2 come in, however, and are starting to change a lot of people's minds. Metal Gear is the type of franchise that causes people to purchase a console (if only for the one game) and Killzone 2 is beautiful. Arguably the best looking console game out there...maybe even a little better-looking than Crysis (though it pains me to admit it).

I came away from E3 with the opinion that Sony is starting to right their ship. They finally have some purchase-worthy games coming and the $100 price drop is much-needed. My only problem is that I've also heard that they have a new 80 gig model that they'll release soon at the original $599 price, while at the same time getting rid of the 60 gig model. So basically it seems that the price cut may only be temporary which is pretty lame. The only alternative would be to release the 80 gig model at the price cut price ($499) which might piss a lot of people off who are running out to get the 60 gig model right now at the same price. My official verdict on Sony for the time being is to wait and see.

Nintendo.

I'm concerned that my Nintendo discussion might be sort of brief, but I'll give it my best shot. Nintendo came out and had some new footage of some old games that we've known about for a while like Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros Brawl, as well as the sequel to the Metroid franchise - Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - which looked pretty cool. Their other "major" announcement put some doubt in gamers' minds however, and was decidedly less cool.

Nintendo showed off Wii Fit, a new game from the guys that made Wii Sports. It comes with a white pad that the player uses to perform various exercises which are then tracked over time to show the user's progress. I think this is a cool little app, but I'm not sure if gamers are going to be very thrilled about it. This seems to be another move by Nintendo to make the Wii mainstream and pull in new non-traditional gamers. That may work but it didn't exactly leave Nintendo fans breathless. After all, it's really just a little white thing you stand on, right?

I came away from Nintendo's conference with a good view of some solid titles but much like Sony, from a gamer's standpoint, I'm still not sold. I really want to buy a second console (I'm an Xbox 360 owner) but I can't decide between the PS3 or Wii.

So that's it. My wrap-up of E3 '07. I'm most excited for Call of Duty 4 out of the whole lot...I'm a huge fan of the franchise and they really seem to be knocking this one out of the park. It's not even out yet but I'll go out on a limb and say it'll be the Game of the Year.

Until next time...

Currently Listening To: Juno Reactor - Mona Lisa Overdrive
Currently Playing: Resident Evil 4, Forza Motorsport 2