While there were a few computer hardware manufacturers at E3, the main focus of E3 is obviously the gaming entertainment industry. Many developers, public relations people and other industry professionals such as console manufacturers were there as well.

The most well known manufacturers in the gaming industry: Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, were displaying their latest developments in some of the largest booths on the show floors. Here, we'll be taking a closer look at Sony's and Nintendo's latest creations: the PlayStation3 and the Wii, respectively. The PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii are being shown for the first time to the public at this year's E3. Microsoft's Xbox360 has already launched, of course, and while it had a large presence at E3, we will be focusing on the two new consoles.

Nintendo Wii

Most of the hype around the convention floors seems aimed at the Nintendo Wii. The line to view the Wii is about three hours long, if not more for some people. As we said in our previous article, the Nintendo Wii can be found inside a closed off section of Nintendo's booth with about 75 game stations available running various games and demos, covering all the traditional genres as well as some more obscure offerings. There are first person shooters, adventure games, and of course the famous Mario and tennis games, not to mention a couple musical titles. 27 titles all told, and more in development.

In our opinion, the Nintendo Wii looks like it will be a great hit amongst the younger children and the less hardcore gamers. We see the Wii being a success for those individuals who are looking at just having fun gaming rather than looking for the best available graphics. The graphics for the Wii are not fantastic, but we believe that the people the Wii is targeted towards aren't the type to look for such things. We noticed that, for example, the upcoming Metroid graphics look just about exactly like the GameCube's Metroid Prime. Other games like Zelda: Twilight Princess and Mario Galaxy look slightly better, but nothing to compare to the graphical power of the Xbox360, PlayStation 3, or a high-end PC. The graphics are roughly the same as the GameCube, only with an upgrade to support widescreen (720x480) and 480p (640x480) resolutions.

Naturally, Nintendo isn't pushing graphics as the major selling point for the Wii. It's all about the new gameplay experience, powered by the new controllers. Evaluating gameplay is a more subjective task, but we did have a chance to play around with the controllers. Has Nintendo found the Next Big Thing, or is the new wireless wand just a gimmick?

Click to enlarge

With games like Table Tennis, we found the controller to be very easy to use. Just a slight left or right movement quickly moves the paddle side-to-side. We found making our hand movements as smooth as possible aided our control of the cursor greatly. Jerking/twitching movements cause the virtual hand to jump around all over the screen, and doesn't allow you to effectively control the game. This is likely a limitation of the sensitivity of the controllers, but we were able to adapt quickly to the requirements.

Many games such as Mario Galaxy needed the Nunchuk along with the standard remote to play the game. You hold the Nunchuk in one hand and the regular remote in the other hand, and the combination of the two allows you to control movements and actions as well as camera angle. We found this to be a little confusing at first because of the separate controllers, but as we spent more time with this setup, again, we grew accustomed to the new controls, and the gaming experience became much more enjoyable. As an example, think back to the first time you used a keyboard and mouse to control a first person shooter, rather than just using the keyboard. It takes a little time to adapt, but once you're comfortable with the new controller scheme, it greatly enhances the gameplay experience.

Click to enlarge

After seeing the sensor bar the other day, many of you wanted to know how it works. We were able to get together with a developer and he was kind enough to answer most of our questions regarding the controller setup.

Click to enlarge

The sensor bar emits an infrared field out directly in front of the TV. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to place the sensor bar in the same plane as the TV, either on top of or below the TV is recommended. As the remote is pointed towards the TV, it interacts with the infrared field. Using triangulation logic, the remote is able to determine location, angle, and distance; as you move the remote around, the change in location/angle/distance is calculated. The remote then communicates with the console via Bluetooth, sending this information to it, and from there the software determines how your movements relate to the game world/application.

The sensor bar doesn't receive any type of signal from the wireless remote and is there purely to generate the field. The remote also has a gyrometer and accelerometer to allow it, for instance in the tennis game, to know the difference between a back hand or regular swing. You need to maintain a proper distance from the sensor bar as well; if you come to within about three feet or less, it will not work precisely.

Click to enlarge

We found first person shooter games to be a little difficult, as we weren't fully accustomed to the controller just yet. There's definitely a learning curve with the new controller mechanism, but long-term that shouldn't present too many difficulties. We noticed quite a few people had already mastered the remote fairly well.

The Wii's remote is fairly light and holding it in the two positions is very natural. As we mentioned before, the on-screen cursor you see when moving the remote around is very sensitive, but once you get accustomed to it, it becomes quite simple to use. We weren't able to find out whether the cursor's sensitivity can be configured to one's liking, but we're hoping something to that effect will be implemented.

We also were able to confirm that Nintendo has no plans for HD output or any Blu-Ray/HD-DVD technology in the future for the Wii. They are aiming to keep costs down to a minimum, and keeping such technology out helps achieve this goal. The size of the console is fairly small and in comparison to the Xbox360 and the PS3 (and the original PS2, for that matter) is significantly more compact. We weren't able to get very close to the Wii, so we can't give precise measurements; however, it appears to be slightly larger than your typical 5.25 inch DVD-ROM drive.

PlayStation 3

We also had some game time with the PlayStation 3 as well as a chance to speak with an associate developer of the game Warhawk. While the controller of the PS3 is very similar to the PS2 controller, one of the additions is that it now has a gyroscope inside. This allows you to control games by tilting the controller as opposed to just pressing buttons. In some ways, it's similar to the Wii controller, but in a more limited fashion. Although the PS3 controller appears to be the same as the PS2 controller, surprisingly, we found this new controller to be somewhat more comfortable than the PS2 controller. Perhaps it's the finish the controller has which makes it feel better, but whatever the case, we found it to be smoother and it definitely fit better in our hands. Silver and black versions of the controller were on display.

Click to enlarge

To put the gyroscopic controller to the test, we spent some time playing the game Warhawk in flight mode. In Warhawk, your country is being overtaken and you must fight alongside your army to defend it. You can aid the army as a foot soldier, in vehicles like Jeeps and tanks, and by air in a futuristic jet. We didn't have a chance to play the game by land, but were able to play in the jet to get a feel for the difference between the gyroscopic controller and a standard analog controller.

Click to enlarge

The first time we gave it a whirl, we found it quite difficult to aim at our target while also flying the aircraft because as we turned our controller we were also changing where the gun is aimed. As we became accustomed to the way the controls worked, we found the controller to be a great improvement over a standard analog setup. We were able to have much more control over the aircraft by only moving the controller in which direction we wanted the aircraft to go. We found that smooth and small movements gave us the best control over the nimble steering, and all of the movements are natural. What we mean by natural is, you may have noticed that when you are playing a game, you will generally have the tendency to unconsciously jerk the controller one way or another to avoid certain objects or to get the vehicle/aircraft/etc. to do what you want it to do. These same movements you unconsciously make are nearly the exact movements you use to control the aircraft.

We initially found the controller to be quite sensitive to our hand movements -- too much so, in our opinion. One aspect we did find to be a great feature was the option to adjust the sensitivity of the controller's responsiveness to our hand movements. When we spoke to the Warhawk associate developer, he was unsure whether that feature was limited to the hardware or if this was available in-game. Whatever the source, we definitely think any games that take advantage of the gyroscopic mechanism need to allow for adjustment of the sensitivity.

Click to enlarge

The PS3 controller uses Bluetooth connectivity to communicate with the PS3 and there are no receivers visible on it. While the controller is wireless, you are also able to connect the USB B cable to it and use it to play as well. This makes your gaming time unlimited when the battery does die. The USB B cable is also used to recharge the wireless controller. There was no mention of the length of time the battery lasted or how long it takes to recharge it.

Click to enlarge

Compared to the graphic quality we were shown back in E3 2005 and on IGN, the graphics of the PS3 here were lacking. Now do not get us wrong; the graphics we saw are very nice, but they just aren't up to par with the pre-rendered demos we were shown in 2005. However, the graphics we saw are much better than what PlayStation 2 offers, and they look competitive with Xbox360. You can check out the videos we're providing to get a look at the graphics, and as developers become more familiar with the platform, we expect the quality to improve.

Besides being a gaming console, the PS3 offers many other features. One feature is the option to store pictures and music on the PS3's hard drive. You get thumbnails of the images, and you can also rotate the photos to any angle you like. A similar option is the ability to store videos on the PS3 for easy access. These also have thumbnails for quick viewing, although the thumbnail generated may not always be useful depending on the opening frames of the movie file.

Finally, PS3 includes a web browser interface. You can have multiple browser windows open and switch between them, and there's also an option to trial all of the browser windows so you can quickly choose which one you want to see. (This is somewhat similar to OS X's Exposé feature.) The browser window has a status bar along with a scroll bar on the right hand side. We did find the browser to be slightly slow, but given the testing environment (i.e., the network provided by E3), we will reserve final judgment on the browser speed. Being able to surf the web with a console could be a nice feature, although without the optional keyboard the overall utility is debatable. (An on-screen keyboard is available, but typing URLs using it is time consuming, and we certainly wouldn't want to write an income message using it.) Sony is promoting the PS3 as more than just a console, however, and integrated browser, hard drive, and Blu-Ray drive certainly help back up those claims.

With the huge gaming improvements over the past two years that we've seen at E3, it surely will be difficult to top this. We'll just have to wait and see what the manufacturers will come up with next year. However, overall, we really are excited to see these two consoles finally come into the marketplace and deliver some competition to the already released Xbox360. Although the PS3 does have better graphics and we're willing to bet it'll have a really wide array of games to select from, we're really looking forward to the Nintendo Wii and all its titles. We feel the fun aspect the Wii will deliver is going to be difficult to beat with better graphics alone. Of course, this is solely based on personal opinion, so we would like to see how far both the Xbox 360 and PS3 can push the limits of console gaming.

BitTorrent Videos

As with the first E3 article, we have some videos to download. You will need a BitTorrent client to download the files; we use Azureus, but you can use whatever you want. The zip file contains a .torrent file which you can opening your client, and the total size of the videos is 149 MB. If you're unfamiliar with how BitTorrent works, we again recommend you check out this short tutorial. The videos were recorded using a Cannon S2 IS, and while the quality isn't exceptional, it should be enough to convey something of the E3 experience.

We have three videos this time. The first one shows our journey to the end of the Nintendo Wii line, and unfortunately the best parts of E3 almost always involve waiting in a long line. In the second video shows the game Warhawk in action, and you can also see how the gyroscopic controller works. Finally, we have a video showing the user interface of the PS3 that we described earlier. If you have any difficulties downloading the videos, let us know.