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Big little things from E3 [The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, Calif.](Press Democrat, The (Santa Rosa, CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) June 10--LOS ANGELES -- For the second year in a row, the big story from the video game industry's annual E3 convention is a new Nintendo gaming system. Last year, the company that brought us Mario and the Wii stunned everyone with the 3DS, a handheld device that lets you play in 3D without wearing special glasses. This year, Nintendo used its pre-show press conference to unveil the Wii U, a successor to the popular console it launched in 2006. Nintendo zigged when everyone else zagged when it brought us the Wii, a runaway hit that practically forced Microsoft and Sony to introduce gesture-based gaming last year with Kinect and PlayStation Move. Nintendo's new system, however, while introducing some new concepts for video game consoles, takes cues from Apple's iPad, THQ's uDraw GameTablet device and, most important, Nintendo's own DS family of handhelds. Like the DS, one of Wii U's core concepts is that it has two screens: your TV and another 6.2-inch touch screen that appears smack in the middle of the console's controller. The controller itself looks a lot like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of THQ's uDraw, with the touch screen in the middle and more traditional game-controller-style buttons off to the sides of the screen. Unlike the uDraw, which has an opaque drawing surface, the Wii U has an iPad-like touch screen to draw on. As with the 3DS, cameras mounted on the controller can be used for augmented reality games that use your whole living room. During Tuesday's press conference, Nintendo showed gameplay concepts that could be executed using only this two-screen setup. In one, a gamer had Wii U's tablet controller lying on the floor and, using a standard Wii remote as a golf club, hit an imaginary golf ball off a tee before watching the ball's progress on the TV. (Wii U will support existing Wii controllers, devices and games. If you dropped off all that old stuff at an electronics recycling center upon hearing that Nintendo announced a new console, go get it back.) The Wii U will be out no earlier than April 2012. The price is to be determined. From a gamer's standpoint, Wii U looked impressive, but Nintendo didn't show much of any actual games. Instead, we got the typical tech demonstrations and canned, pre- rendered movies that no doubt look better than the actual gameplay we see when Wii U launches. We'll learn more about hardware specifications and launch titles next year. Until then, feel free to feel cautiously excited. The Wii U wasn't the only new hardware to get a big unveiling. Sony finalized the details of its successor to the PlayStation Portable Monday night. Known as the PlayStation Vita (pronounced VEE-tah), it sports some cool integration with the PS3 that will allow you to start playing a game on your handheld, stop playing, then resume on your PS3. As someone who never finishes the handheld games I start on my vacations, I'm looking forward to this feature. Vita will likely sport the best-looking games on a handheld device until it's topped by some mobile phone or another. Though its visuals come in just two dimensions, the games Sony showed on the Vita seemed to have an extra layer of sheen and polish when compared with Nintendo's 3DS. Like probably every handheld gaming device from this point forward, the Vita features a touchscreen and motion sensors that let you control games by swiping across the screen and rotating and tilting the device. It also features a touchpad on the back, something of a new twist that could become the Vita's defining feature. The real question for Sony and the Vita will be whether it has enough unique experiences to convince customers it's worth $40 in an age of ubiquitous, quality $5 games for tablets and mobile phones. The Vita, which I'll be playing sometime between the time I wrote this column and the time you'll be reading it, will launch this fall for $250. A 3G-enabled version will sell for $300 and require a contract with AT&T. Outside of these devices, E3 is largely about the games we'll be playing over the next six months to a year. The show isn't over as I write this, but early standouts include Electronic Arts' first-person shooter "Battlefield 3," running on high-end PCs; Ubisoft's "Rayman Origins," whose four-player cooperative play reminds me of "New Super Mario Bros. Wii"; and "Rise of Shadows," a scary Kinect game aimed at adults. I'll have news from throughout the show on my blog at gamewit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com, and I also will gradually roll out write-ups of the games I saw and played at the show. ___ To see more of The Press Democrat, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pressdemocrat.com. Copyright (c) 2011, The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544) |