Late Night Consoling

Nintendo held its yearly pre-E3 press conference last week, at which it made various hardware-related announcements mainly about its upcoming Wii console. The company also had additional quiet announcements throughout the week.
- The Wii console will be released in the fourth quarter of this year. No price point was announced. However, Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan confirmed that the system will see a worldwide simultaneous release--including Australia and South America.
- Wii will have a feature called WiiConnect24 that keeps the system persistently connected to the internet. By taking advantage of the machine's low power consumption and running in a mode without using the fan, Wii will stay connected to Nintendo's online service at all times in order to download any gameplay features or additions that developers have made available.
- Nintendo revealed that the previously announced "shell controller" for Wii is in fact not a shell, but a standalone retro-styled controller to be used for Virtual Console games. It appears that a very small number of new games, such as Super Smash Bros. Brawl, may also have the option to use the retro controller.
- On the Wii remote is a small speaker. This speaker will be used to create additional immersion. For example, when fired, Link's arrow will sound as if it is travelling from the controller to the screen.
- Present at Nintendo's booth, but not usable by the public, was a different sort of shell controller. It is shaped like a shotgun and has a slot accepting the standard Wii controller. There is a trigger hole and a thumb-controlled analog stick built in. The peripheral is likely to be intended for light gun games.
- Nintendo has officially licensed Havok physics technology for its upcoming console. It is inclear what larger implications this has, if any, since Havok's technology is generally implemented on a software, not hardware, basis.
- After having been announced as the developer of the upcoming Nintendo DS web browser, Opera will also be handling the web browser for Wii. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata noted that the software will be loaded to the console's flash ROM.
- Virtual Console was essentially unaddressed during Nintendo's conference, but Hudson Soft, whose TurboGrafx-16 console is one of five that will be emulated, announced that it plans to bring 100 titles to the service and is hoping to add more as it talks with third party developers and publishers.

Sony of course released a variety of news bits about its various systems during the week of E3, mainly at its pre-show press conference. Here you go:
- The PlayStation 3 controller will be essentially in appearance and button layout to the current DualShock 2, but will be wireless, lack rumble capability, and include a six-direction motion sensor for 3D directional movement. Reports from various media as well as informal chats with developers suggested that the majority of PS3 developers were unaware of the motion sensing feature until Sony announced it publically.
- Sony revealed PlayStation 3 to have a US launch date of November 17 with a dual SKU pricing scheme of $499 and $599. The higher priced model will feature a 60GB hard drive and built in support for Wi-Fi, SD/CF/MemoryStick flash memory cards, and HDMI; the lower priced model will feature a 20GB and will not support those additional features. The date will be the same for Canada (CAN$549/CAN$$659), Europe (499 Euro/599 Euro), and Australia (AUS$829/AUS$999). Japan will precede the other territories, launching on November 11 with an 59,800 yen price point for the cheaper model and a retailer-set open price point for the more expensive one.
- PS3 will feature connectivity with PSP. An example shown includes using the PSP as a wing mirror for the PS3's F1 racing game.
- The previously announced PS1 emulation on PSP was demonstrated, with a functional version of Namco's original Ridge Racer (Riiiiidge Racer!, as Sony's Kaz Hirai reminds us) running on the portable system.
- PSP will be receiving additional peripherals such as a camera and GPS device.
- Like PS1, PS2 will have a ten year life cycle.

Though Microsoft doesn't have a new console launching any time soon, the company still had plenty of announcements to make last week. Here's what was new on the hardware front:
- Microsoft laid out the plans for Live Anywhere, a comprehensive online service that will span users' Windows PCs, Xbox 360s, and cell phones. The devices will all share a common friends list and gamerscore, and certain games will have achievements and functions accessible from multiple platforms. Some multiplayer games will also allow players to interact between Xbox 360 and PC versions of the games. The service is slated to kick into gear when Windows Vista launches next year.
- Two first party wireless peripherals were announced for Xbox 360: a headset and a racing wheel. Both will be available this fall. Furthermore, a USB wireless receiver for Windows will be released to allow those devices to work with PC games as well. In the Xbox 360 generation, Microsoft plans to make its gaming peripherals cross-platform across Windows and Xbox 360.
- Microsoft reiterated its plan to bring a camera, dubbed Xbox Live Vision, to Xbox 360. The wireless peripheral will surface this fall.
- The previously announced external HD-DVD player for Xbox 360 will connect via USB. The video signal will be sent from the console itself. No price point was revealed for the device, but it is due this holiday season.
- By this holiday season, Xbox 360 will feature 160 titles across retail and Xbox Live.

Microsoft's Peter Moore inadvertently set off a bizarre secondhand exchange between console executives last week when he made a comment pointing out the price of PS3 when compared to the likely prices of its competition: "Tell me why you would buy a $600 PS3?" Moore asked. "People are going to buy two (machines.) They're going to buy an Xbox and they're going to buy a Wii...for the price of one PS3."

Days later, Sony's Phil Harrison agreed with's Moore's basic point, but not with the details: "I think Peter Moore is exactly right. I think Nintendo will be the second system consumers purchase after PlayStation 3," he said, before bringing up Nintendo's history of innovation as well as its different market target. Harrison also noted that "PlayStation 3's price is justified by PlayStation 3's value. That's what consumers base their purchasing decisions on--value."

In a Joystiq/Engadget interview published today, Nintendo exec Perrin Kaplan threw in her two cents on the matter. When asked if the Xbox 360 and Wii could be complimentary, Kaplan responds, "I think they could be. For a hard core gamer who really wants a plethora of ways to pick from, someone who really wants to spend a lot of time gaming." She then goes on to throw a few positive words at Moore, whom she knows "from [his] Sega days."

According to IGN, MMO developer Mythic Entertainment is considering bringing its upcoming title Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC) to consoles. The company has a version of the game playable on Xbox 360 and is toying with the idea of PS3 as well, though plans for neither console have yet been set in stone. At the moment, the Xbox 360 version can interact with the PC version, but Mythic noted that if the title indeed comes to consoles, it will likely be streamlined for the console interface, as well as have unique content, meaning that it could no longer interface with the PC game. It is also unlikely that the two console versions would be playable with one another, given the proprietary nature of the platforms and their online services.

Q Entertainment's Tetsuya Mizuguchi speaks with Eurogamer about his various games, as well as his current plans and whether we might see a sequel to Res (PS2, DC) some day.

Interested in E3 coverage from other sites besides ours? Check it out at Game Informer, GameSpot, Eurogamer, IGN, GameSpy, and probably plenty of others I'm missing!