E3

Formally unveiled at the company's E3 2011 press conference, the PlayStation Vita aims to provide the most comprehensive portable gaming experience around. We've had some time with Vita, so here's a preview of what gamers can expect before the end of 2011.

Overview Available in two models, the PS Vita will go for $250 or $300, a Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi/3G version, respectively.

Armed with a dazzling 5-inch OLED capacitive touch screen, the Vita also allows players to interact with games through a rear touch panel. Under the hood the Vita packs an ARM Cortex-A9 core (4 core) CPU and a SGX543MP4+ GPU.

Its 16:9 screen sports a 960x544-pixel resolution, which is flanked by a front-facing camera that can take 640x480-pixel photos. An identical lens is placed on the back to bring "augmented reality to a new level." Like the 3DS, iPad, and iPod Touch, the Vita will make use of motion control. This is accomplished via a three-axis gyroscope and three-axis accelerometer.… Read more

Donald and Eric talk about Nintendo's Wii U console and tablet controller, announced at E3 2011. Also, the fate of your keys is determined, a robot tackles a Rubik's Cube, and affordable space travel is nearly here... but not quite.

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LOS ANGELES--The Wii U, Nintendo's 2012 reinvention of the Wii hardware and of home console gaming, is still a device clouded in mystery. Its controls are intriguing, its capabilities seemingly vast. We had the opportunity to play with the Wii U after Nintendo's morning press conference. To gain more perspective, we had a one-on-one conversation with Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, game design legend and creative executive behind Nintendo's first-party games.

Time was limited, but I certainly had plenty of questions: about the Wii U, the future evolution of console and handheld gaming, and most importantly, how this all relates to Apple.

Q: What were the influences for the creation of Wii U? A: There was nothing external that influenced us. What really brought about the idea for it stemmed from our original concept for the Wii. We talked about it as the system that would never sleep, using something like Wii Connect 24--meaning, people would be able to access the system very quickly at any time. But, what we found was that as people started getting larger TVs, turning on the TV began to take more and more time than it used to. It was no longer instantaneous. So that became a barrier for people, and people who were watching TV would essentially make the system unavailable for somebody who wanted to play a game or see what was new with the system that day.

And so, with those challenges in mind, we started to look at what we wanted to do for the next system, and started to think that if we can't continue to always rely on the TV, we need to create a dedicated screen just for the system so people can quickly and instantly interact with it, regardless of what was happening on the TV. … Read more

Brian Tong joins us live from the E3 show floor to try to explain this cool-looking new Wii U console/controller thing. Even Cooley seems at least slightly impressed. Also, Sony delivers an apology but kind of a snoozefest of a press conference, 25% of U.S. hackers may be informants (including Antuan Goodwin) and reasoned discussion of Apple's iCloud, iOS, and OS X updates. No, really. --Molly

LOS ANGELES--The biggest single story from E3 2011 is easily Nintendo's Wii U, the sequel to the best-selling Wii console, with Sony's PlayStation Vita a close second. Both devices were broadly hinted at before (with the Vita previewed earlier under the codename NGP), but this week counts as the official coming out party for both hardware devices.

Both the Wii U and Vita boast impressive features. In fact, both have touch screens, dual analog sticks, and some form of TV-to-portable-screen functionality. But, both are also going against the conventional wisdom of recent tech hardware, adding layers of complexity … Read more

Unleashing the surround-sound capabilities of your game console adds an extra dimension to your gameplay, and TubeSurround is exhibiting at E3 again this year to show off its halo-style Tube Sound Headphones.

The technology has been around for years, and the company's Web site is still as indecipherable as ever, but the basic concept is that you wear the halo around your head and two earbuds stretch down and into your ears. Six mini speakers are positioned incrementally around your dome to create an immersive sound environment with a combination of bone induction and traditional audio sources.

Even hard-core … Read more

Nintendo found lightning in a bottle with the Wii, and with Wii U--the company's upcoming console--it might have found the bottling plant. Wii U builds upon the barriers broken by the Wii and takes advantage of a touchscreen-equipped controller that offers players a new way to interact with games paired with a console capable of HD visuals.

We'll just state up front that Nintendo did not disclose many pertinent details of its next system at E3 2011 today. There's no official price point. And there's no specific release date. It might come out somewhere between April … Read more

Earlier this morning Nintendo introduced the Wii U, the successor to the Wii. Think of the Wii U as a sort of DS and Wii hybrid, combining touch and motion controls, with an on-screen HD gaming experience.

We were lucky enough to get some hands-on time with a collection of Wii U game demos and time with the tablet controller; here are our impressions.

… Read more

LOS ANGELES--Nintendo got the next wave of console wars started today with the introduction of the next entry to its arsenal, the Wii U, at the company's E3 presentation.

The new console, with an iPad-like controller, will be available next year, as the company had said in April.

Nintendo didn't offer the price of the console or any technical specifications. But it nevertheless wowed a partisan audience at the Nokia Theater here in Los Angeles with a video of novel new gameplay. The company never showed the device itself or any live demonstrations of the console or controller.

But in the video, Nintendo showed how gamers could use a TV screen and the screen on the controller at the same time to play games, and how they could use each on its own. Using both screens, for example, a gamer playing video golf put the new controller on the ground, where it became a sand trap with a ball in it. The player took a swing with a Wii controller and the ball flew onto the TV screen and landed on the green.

In battle games, players can flick throwing stars at opponents with their finger on the new controller. The weapon then flies onto the television screen.

Using the screen separately, gamers could play a traditional board game like Othello, where they move chips over a the board by touching the screen. And they can also use the screen for video calls and for surfing the Web. The controller features a 6.2-inch screen, has a rumble feature, a microphone, two speakers, an accelerometer, gyroscope, and a front-facing camera.

Nintendo Global President Satoru Iwata said the company expects the console can be loved by hardcore and casual gamers alike.… Read more