And thats a wrap! E3 2006 is over.

Wow! This was probably the best E3 that I have ever witnessed from afar. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony throw down the gauntlets and were focused on stealing the attention away from each other. However in the end it appears our buddies at Nintendo came away vitorious. Nintendo's press confeernce was probably one of the best I have seen in years. They did nothing but center on what the Wii can do and highlighted the Wii edition od Zelda: Twilight Princess and Red Steel.

Nintendo showed off 27 Wii titles on the floor and had tons of future DS games including a Yoshi's Island 2, Star Fox DS and Final Fantasy 3. Nintendo definitely came away the winner of this year's E3. However Nitendo did have a couple of issues that I seem should be handled soon. For one, Nintendo has again skipped out on annoucning the Price and release date of the Wii. Two, Nintendo showed of the classic controller for the Wii. The Classic controller was going to be the "shell" but it appears Nintendo has opted not to do that. The classic controller design is something I'm not the keen on actually. It's shaped like a dual analog Super NES controllerhowever I would've opted that the Z button was behind the controller and there were extra face buttons for the N64 games but I guess I'll still end up buying it.

Microsoft's E3 press conference had to be big in order to compete with Sony and Nintendo this year. However it was to say the least an average press conference. Microsoft did announced Halo 3 and showed off a 2 minute trailer, which developer Bungie says is using real time graphic rendering. Take that Killzone. Microsoft also announced Fable 2 from recently aqcuired Lionhead Studios. There was also a list of new Live! Aracade titles as well as tons of new next gen titles for the 360.

Sony came away with not only the least impressive conference but it was their worst ever since coming the first E3 back in 95. To start off Sony finally unveiled the new controller design which is, behold, a shiny silver Playstation 2 contoller. The controller did have a couple of twists to it however. First the controller is completely wireless and has a usb connection used to recharge the controller. Second the PS3 controller motion sensor detectors which was taken from the idea of the Wii's remote. The "limited" motion detectors allow for limited game play and all you can really do is play racing sims and flight games that are more keen to using this kind of technology. The controller takes its final addition directly from the 360's controller. In the center there is a button that acts the same at the 360 symbol on the controller.

Oh and did I mention the price? Sony announced that they will release the PS3 in two sku's. A low budget sku will go for $499 and will come with a 20 gig hard drive but minus some usb ports and wifi access. The premium package will come at a hefty $599 and have a 60 gig hard drive instead and include all the bells and whistles not available for the low budget pack. I actually expected the PS3 to be announced that around those prices, so no big deal there. However what actually urks me is how Sony ripped Microsoft for releasing two sku package plans for the Xbox 360 and then later decides to do it themselves. Have you guys over at Sony have no humility?

I'll be honest with you. I do not plan to get a Playstation 3. Period. I don't care if SquareEnix is releasing 3 versions of Final Fantasy XIII or if Virtua Fighter 5 will be exclusive. By the way the multi-game apporach to FFXIII that SquareEnix is taking urks me as well. More on that another time. What really matters is at the end of the day I plan on getting my Wii and buying a couple more games for my 360. Sony has really lost me this time with the way they are carrying themselves. Maybe if they drop the price in a couple of years then maybe I'll consider getting one.

Maybe.

Anyway its late, I'll talk some more about the games of E3 for the Wii, Xbox 360 and the PS3. Pace.