The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was held a couple of weeks ago and I am finally getting down to capturing my thoughts. This is the annual epicenter of what's new and exciting within the world of console and PC video games. E3 tees up introductions of the latest products coming out for the retails channels in time for the holiday season.

This year's show was particularly special and it was clearly the most dynamic show of the past five years and arguably the most profound showing in the 18 years of the event. Why?

Because this year we have the two hard core gaming platform providers, Microsoft and Sony both placing $1 billion bets on their brand new gaming systems in time for this holiday season in the midst of new competitive pressures from mobile and online. With that much on the line, this show proved to be full of energy, passion and talent all vying for the gaming consumers attention.

The challenge is that over the past two or three generations of console gaming platforms, the focus was on pleasing the core gaming consumer and making efforts to extend the audience further into the mainstream. Instead, the concept of buying a device to hook up to your television and playing a game is under direct pressure by those nifty smart-phones and tablets you carry around.

Those new handheld devices are not cheap...at least the good ones are not. But those new devices have access to an incredible amount of entertainment options ranging from web-surfing, streaming video, social networks, free(pay)-to-play and/or low-cost casual games. All of this consumes the players time and attention and now competes with the purchase of a home entertainment console and it's library of gaming options.

So it is up to the big console manufacturers to deliver a new, must-have gaming experience. Did they deliver? To some degrees I would say yes and to other degrees I would say kinda.

Let's look at the what Microsoft brought to the gunfight...

Microsoft introduced their new Xbox One. This is the next generation of the Xbox series which was first introduced in 2001 and followed up rather quickly with the Xbox 360 in 2005.

Now there has been quite a bit of confusion and reversals in go-to-market strategies for the Xbox One's introduction. Microsoft had planned to have their gaming console constantly connected to the internet. This would have afforded them the opportunity to introduce new content management systems that would be new value-propositions to the consumer as well as afford them and their publishing partners (companies that make and distribute the games) the opportunity to limit reselling the disk multiple times.

While the new features of not needing the disk in the device once a game is installed allowing you to hop from one game or application to another quickly was exciting as well as the ability for others in your family to share the same games was great. But the restrictions on sharing met with incredible negative backlash from the core gaming community.

Another strike for Microsoft was that the Xbox One would include the Kinect gesture camera technology, something that was optional with the Xbox 360. The issue is that this piece of technology as well as some extra capabilities built into the box such as support for cable card tuner support has lead to a premium price of $499 at launch. In this economy, it caught a few consumers off-guard.

And unlike the Xbox 360 which was backward compatible with its predecessor, the One will not support older games including the digital download library of games on Xbox Arcade.

Okay, that all lead to a very bumpy start for Microsoft even for traditionally Xbox fans and is reflected in a good bit of consumer confusion and resistance to purchasing this console out the gate. But Microsoft still has a ton of stuff up their sleeve to help win people back...it will just take time. And these console wars are just that, WARS...made up of many battles.

So what's next for Microsoft? It will focus on several fronts including exclusive game content, Xbox Live services and advanced media capabilities including seamless integration with all your entertainment needs.

First, its all about the games...at least for now. Microsoft is reportedly spending $1 billion in the creation of exclusive internally developed games as well as exclusive 3rd party games developed by others. This war chest of games was quite prominent at the Xbox E3 Media event held the day before the show opened.

Games of note only on Microsoft's platforms included: Titanfall (developed by creators of successful Call of Duty franchise), Ryse: Son of Rome (made by leading 3D technology developer Crytek), Forza 5 (photo-realistic auto racing), Killer Instinct (Rare...previously a Nintendo studio), Sunset Overdrive (creators of Sony's popular Ratchet & Clank), Dead Rising 3 and Microsoft's own Halo.

For a well curated list of forthcoming Xbox One titles, check out IGN's complete list.

One note, is that a Microsoft exclusive can include desktop PC support such as Respawn's Titanfall which will be available for Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC.

What did Sony have up their sleeve?

$399! That is what they had up their sleeve. Originally Sony had planned to include a camera...not unlike the Kinect on Xbox One but instead chose to strike at a much lower price point. This and the fact that Sony had similar computing power (actually a bit more) as well as a non-restrictive digital rights management scheme (DRM)...meant this device behaved similar to current software disk practices of buy, loan to friend and/or resell to retailer all lead to the "gamers choice" coming out of the early days of the show.

Sony's new Playstation is an all-new architecture which is more consistent with other contemporary platforms. As a result, it is quite easy for a game developer to produce games that run on Xbox One, PS4 as well as PC. Even Nintendo's Wii U is not too dissimilar but substantially less horse-powered. But as a result, PS4's are not backward compatible with older Playstation games.

Consistent with the PS3, the Playstation 4 will be able to play Blu-ray discs.

While it is still left up to how the game developers choose to leverage it, but Sony is really pushing the Playstation Vita as a second-screen platform for the new PS4. We'll have to wait and see how the games can benefit from this type of setup.

To that end, the Day One allotment sold out on Amazon in a few days VS Xbox One Day One being still available two weeks after the show. Now they could have had different quantities and the like but still seems a bit telling...obviously this is not great journalism...but when did I claim this site was :-)

I would still give props to Microsoft for their online services offerings (streaming, content & cloud is best in class) which are definitely a leg up over Sony's but if you are looking for a straight-forward gaming console with a solid online offering including their Cloud streaming solution acquired from Gaikai, this looks like your guy.

Exclusives for PS4 include: Infamous: Second Son, Knack (Mark Cerny), The Order: 1886 (ex-Naughty Dog and Blizzard team), Driveclub (Evolution Studios), Deep Down (Capcom) and Kill Zone.

A complete list of Playstation 4 titles is being expertly compiled by the great crew over at IGN.

An E3 show report without mentioning Nintendo?

With so much going on in the Microsoft and Sony camps and the nearly imperceptible movement in the Wii U universe it was very easy to "forget Nintendo". I am sorry to say, it was even detectable within the booth itself which was filled with Disneyland-type character sets. My kids would have had fun in the booth but anyone looking for new treasure troves of great Nintendo gaming would have had a hard time finding much.

If you are one of the gamers that have a Wii U or are considering one, check out these upcoming Wii U titles. Of note, the usual Nintendo in-house (1st party) games look strong but they seem to be few and far between since the launch of the Wii U last year. This includes Super Mario 3D World, Mariocart 8, Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze and Super Smash Brothers. Tons of familiar brands...new Wii U packaging.

Other Standout Titles

Tom Clancy's The Division
Arguably one of the most ambitious titles from this year's show.

The Witcher 3
Visually stunning, open-world RPG which is suppose to be 20% larger than Skyrim

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

With much fanfare, Sony just announced the not-too-shocking existence of the Playstation 4. And if you have followed any of the rumor coverage leading up to this over the past 6 months, the specifications are pretty much in-line with everyone's expectations.

With the first three incarnations of Sony's Playstation selling a combined 300 million units...this system has a lot of live up to. Unlike previous versions, at the heart of the PS4 is a more traditional (but very robust) PC-like architecture...making it easier to develop games and port content to/from other systems such as Microsoft's Xbox.

The system itself was not shown but we did get to see the updated PS controller which now includes a touchpad surface and some greater motion/depth control functionality.

The console market needs to evolve as they have been challenged with player's attention in other areas including the onslaught of mobile and social games available today...many offered in a "freemium" pricing model. Nintendo's recent introduction of their Wii U gaming console has started off slow. I would contribute some of this underwhelming start to the lack of original content. There was no "must have" titles at launch for Nintendo's console. Hopefully Sony has learned a lesson from Nintendo's snafu?

Now I am definitely not bought into the death of the console BUT the paradigms need to change...change drastically. And if executed well, some of these capabilities mentioned today for the PS4 could be the start of something new especially in the area of leveraging the Cloud (a host of internet services).

What would a new platform nowadays be without social integration and this one features some very nice new hooks including the ability for a player to broadcast his game and even let friends jump in to help. Other "cloud-type" capabilities include intelligent delivery of content, the ability to start playing a game while it is downloading and sharing your gaming experience with friends.

Sony did parade a line-up of developers and publishers on stage committed to the new console but what content will be at the launch is the big question. Today we saw preliminary demos from Capcom, Ubisoft, Activision, Guerrilla Games, Sucker Punch, Square Enix, etc.

I will say that the games were visually better from current generation console games with more focus on advanced particle systems, some richer detailed environments, more NPC's on screen and a smoother frame-rate which can add up to an overall better gaming experience. But the games shown did not have a level of "magical" that we experienced with the last generation when it comes to its overall presentation.

You should note that we are comparing highly-mature current generation games to first-gen on the PS4. I'm sure more advances will come about as the game tools and production pipeline matures. I will say that fire and smoke, lighting, camera filters and effects and other atmospheric visuals look amazing and added another level of realism.

Pricing and the actually release date (except to say holiday 2013) were not issued but I am sure we will get much more details at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles this June.  We'll get much more information then.

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

I don't even know where to begin. What was Sony thinking? They bring out a a killer new piece of hardware in the form of a mobile gaming powerhouse called the PS Vita and then pop out some uninspiring games to go on it? Did they think developers would jump on to a platform they are not even supporting with their own killer content to drive sales?

Okay, I will give you that Uncharted on the PS Vita was a very good game. And there is some nice "online arcade" quality titles available that are worth playing if you have the device. Highlights of the show were Little Big Planet, Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation and Soundshapes...all very solid offerings. But after that, your kinda looking at 25 mediocre titles from the demos at the show. Just not enough excitement to pull the trigger on another piece of hardware to carry around.

What was I hoping for? How about a handful of top-tier 1st party titles like an original God of War? Instead I get Playstation One classics? Come on! You are killing me! This is a powerful device that I am going to play 10+ year old games on? IF that was the caliber of content you were going to push...you should have lower the specs on the hardware and sold it for $100!

I realize the economics of the thing. Small installed base...doesn't justify development dollars. But then you shouldn't build the thing and sell it to me! It is kinda a self fulfilling situation as it stands. Make the bet or don't even try.

This was definitely not the year of the handheld gaming console. Sony largely forgot to talk about the platform in their press conference and Nintendo pretty much did the same thing??? Mobile smart devices are clearly winning out here and that is a very sad state of affair. Having a quality mobile gaming device with physical controllers makes all the difference. But the device needs to have the content to justify owning it and carrying it with you.

I really don't know what to expect at this stage but if you are remotely considering buying a PS Vita...don't! I guess Sony has "one last chance" to resolve this at the Tokyo Game Show in September. But I am not holding my breath.

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

Here are some sneak peaks at some of the top "potential" games at E3 this year...



Ubisoft delivers another amazing demo...


Aassassin's Creed finally evolves from 2 to 3...new additional settings and characters...


Laura deserves a good return to gaming and I'm hopeful that this product delivers...

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

Okay, "Don't buy" might be a bit strong but one topic of discussion I seem to have with friends and family throughout the holiday season is "what not to buy". As you already know, technology evolves at an amazing pace and it can be tough keeping track of what to BUY and what to WAIT for. When I say WAIT, I am anticipating a new version of these products coming out shortly after the holidays that makes it potentially worth waiting for the latest incarnation with some meaningful new features. Nearly all of these products I have endorsed throughout the year but a newer iteration is probably in the wings. So here's a list of what I would suggest holding off or still feel save in purchasing...

Well by now you know you should not expect the usual list of gift ideas for your boys and girls from me. My lists will skew toward the cool, new and/or high-tech. I'm probably not going to dive into that new tricycle for your toddler unless it comes with OnStar location services! But that said, let's look at what cool things a kid can ask for this holiday that I wish was around when I was a little one.