PS Vita

E3 2011: Nintendo Wii U, Sony Vita, and the dangers of complexity

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

E3 2011: PlayStation Vita vs. Nintendo 3DS

With the PlayStation Vita now officially unveiled, we're putting it side by side with the Nintendo 3DS. As they're priced the same, we're curious which system provides the best overall value. For your $250, which portable console will you buy?

Sony's new handheld--the Sony Vita (live blog)

Editor's note: We used Cover It Live for this event, so if you missed the live blog, you can still replay it in the embedded component below. Replaying the event will give you all the live updates along with commentary from our readers and several CNET reporters. For those of you who just want the basic updates, we've included them in regular text on this page. And here are a few summary posts we've already published with the key points from today's announcement:

Sony took the stage Monday evening at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles … Read more

E3 2011: Why isn't Apple at E3?

LOS ANGELES--This is largely a rhetorical question, as Apple is not fond of making appearances at trade shows, including CES and Computex. In fact, Apple dropped out of the one trade show it regularly participated in, the Macworld Expo, a couple of years ago. Additionally, this year has an additional wrinkle, as Apple is hosting its own WWDC conference the very same week as E3.

Yet, the question is not as ridiculous as it seems. One area of interactive entertainment that has experienced tremendous year-over-year growth recently is the mobile games segment currently dominated by iOS and the triple-play of … Read more

E3 buzz much louder this year, says Nielsen

According to media ratings and research company Nielsen, E3 is generating online buzz at a level 59 percent higher than last year. The key driver is interest in Nintendo's successor to the Wii console, which is expected to be revealed on Tuesday, June 7.

The buzz level was measured by counting the number of messages from blogs, Twitter, and message boards during April and May of 2010 and 2011, and Nielsen says that 22 percent of this year'… Read more

Sony previews NGP's key features

Sony has posted several videos to its U.S. PlayStation blog, showcasing the company's upcoming portable-gaming device, the Next Generation Portable.

The NGP, unveiled earlier this year, comes with dual thumbsticks and a 5-inch OLED touch display. Sony says that the graphical capabilities of the NGP will be substantially greater than those of its predecessor, the PlayStation Portable. To help add some more flavor to the platform, Sony has added a touch surface on the back of the device as well.

In the videos posted to the PlayStation blog, people are seen playing several titles that will be available … Read more

E3 and the video game bubble

Even though it's supposedly an industry-only trade show, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is an event of epic proportions for video game aficionados, as evidenced by the legions of fans who follow the show's daily announcements online, through blogs, news outlets, and (a more recent development) video feeds.

But despite its decade-plus place in the public consciousness (I've been attending since 1999), the E3 show has been to the brink of extinction more than once, and while it has pulled off a remarkable recovery over the past couple of years, there's still a chance history may repeat itself.

In brief, what happened was the trade show equivalent of a boom and bust cycle. Throughout the 2000s, game companies competed to outdo each other, with excessive budgets and outlandish displays, creating literal mini cities inside the Los Angeles Convention Center that easily trumped anything seen at the larger Consumer Electronics Show, which takes place in Las Vegas every January.

The trend peaked in 2006, after which the participants collectively realized that entirely too much money was being spent on the show, which had long since stopped being a place for retail buyers to make deals with publishers, and had become essentially a weeklong press conference. Simply put, the week's worth of media hits was judged to be simply not worth the investment.

At the time, the Entertainment Software Association, a trade organization that runs the event, agreed to retrench, scaling down the 2007 version into what then-Entertainment Software Association President Douglas Lowenstein called a "more personal, efficient, and focused" show. E3 went from 60,000 attendees the previous year to about 4,000, and from 400 exhibiting companies to fewer than 40. E3 2008 was a similarly small affair, returning to the Los Angeles Convention Center, but keeping the small, low-cost format.… Read more

preGame 53: Call of Duty Elite; E3 2011 preview

On today's episode of preGame we'll be previewing the biggest gaming event of the year, E3! Join us along with special guest Scott Stein as we dive deep into E3 2011 predictions, anticipated games, and more previews than you can handle; from the Wii 2 to the NGP, and everything in between.

We'll also have an in-depth conversation about today's announcement from Activision regarding Call of Duty Elite. This brand-new premium service will enhance the online multiplayer experience by leaps and bounds. But is it worth a premium price?

All this and much more on this … Read more