I know I post too much, but you guys will WANT to read this:

[azurite]

Source: About.com

At the most interesting and entertaining of the big E3 press conferences, Sony made several important announcements that could have a negative effect on the Microsoft Xbox, and especially the Nintendo GameCube/Gameboy consoles.

The biggest shocker was Sony's plans to release, in 4Q2004, a hand-held game system which is designed to not only compete head-to-head with Nintendo's GBA, but possibly blow Nintendo right out of the hand-held market.

This portable platform, The PSP (PlayStation Portable), will have a 3D screen, stereo sound, a custom processor built on 90-nanometer chip making technology, and USB 2.0 connectivity with the ability to connect not only to PS 1 & 2 but also to PCs and mobile phones. It will also use a new optical media format, dubbed the UMD (Universal Media Disc), that uses a disc half the diameter of a CD but is able to hold 1.8GB of data, about three time the capacity of a CD.

Sony also announced their plans for a new PS2 accessory called the EyeToy. The EyeToy is a video/ motion tracking device that can be used as a game interface (by tracking hand and body movements) and also for video conferencing. Some of those games looked like great exercise.

Sony's online experiment with SoCom Navy Seals has been very successful and they plan to include their network adapter with all PS2 systems beginning in June.

Sony's press conference made the other two pale in comparison. The Xbox team had no surprises to offer. Microsoft's Xbox has always had wonderful graphics, and games like Doom 3 and Halo 2 really show off what the Xbox is capable of. They also announced upgrades to Xbox live, Microsoft's online gaming service. Nintendo didn't have much new going on either.

Both Microsoft and Nintendo are still working very hard to play catch-up with Sony, but they shouldn't count on this happening very soon because Sony is pulling away fast.

Wireless games and Online games were hot topics at this year's E3. Nokia was showing it's N-Gage mobile phone/game deck. It works fairly well as a game device, though it isn't quite as easy to play is Game Boy Advanced. I tried playing Tomb Raider on it and the key placement still leaves something to be desired. Several other companies where showing mobile multi-player games.

JAMDAT Mobil had three multi-player titles, including Neverwinter Nights. Fox and THQ are planning a complete wireless gaming community based on the Simpson's town of Springfield, among other games.

On the PC front, several multi-player games are doing quite well. America's Army, the free game from the US Army is rolling out many new add-ons for their players. New MMORPGs are coming out from several sources. Sony is bringing out new Everquest games for both PC and PlayStation. Other MMORPG's include Artifact's Horizons, Final Fantasy XI for Playstation, Mythica for PC from Microsoft, City of Heroes from NCSoft, and The Matrix Online from Ubi Soft. All of these games are due out within the next 18 months.

*smirk* I. Can't. Wait.