Natiahs

@MMcCraryNJ They've already been blown past by Apple. Nintendo is celebrating the sale of 4.5 million Nintendo 3DS's in one year while Apple sold 11.2 million iPads in the 4th quarter alone. The New iPad boasts resolution higher than PS3 or 360. The only thing preventing iPad from replacing consoles is 1) the lack of a high quality wireless controller, and 2) the fact that AirPlay isn't a mature technology yet.

But if I were Sony / Microsoft / Nintendo, I'd be more concerned that TV manufacturers are including streaming game services in their new sets. OnLive is very good tech. I'm not sure how many people will perceive a value in a $500 dedicated console in 2013. Seems like an era whose time has passed.

I pre-ordered Vita but decided not to pick it up due to the ridiculous memory card pricing. I have a 64GB class 10 SDXC card for my camera that I picked up for under $85; there's NO WAY I'm paying $100 for a card half that size. All Sony needed to do was build in 16GB and I'd be sold, but they didn't.

Not a single word about multiplayer? The phrase "When you succeed, it's because you alone succeeded" in the recap is patently untrue - I've killed many a boss by staying out of harm's way why a couple online players delivered the beat-down. And the PvP cat covenant battles can be epic with enough skilled players.

@GoldenCannon Black Ops on 360 ran fine in stereoscopic 3D, you just had to go into the display settings and enable it. I don't think Black Ops took a resolution hit for it, either.

Nice. I've been on the fence about selling my 360 since I'm pretty much only playing 3D games now (aside from Catherine). If more 3D is coming to 360, I may hang onto it for a bit.

N

One of my favorite race games of all time is The Great American Cross Country Road Race (Activision, 1985). This looks like the closest I'm going to get to a proper remake or sequel. Can't wait.

Sweet. I've already uploaded a few of my 3D shorts to YouTube; if PS3 will allow them to be played on new 3DTVs, so much the better.

BTW, Have you seen the prices Coraline and Ice Age are fetching over $120 each on eBay?

Nintendo: 3DS was the star of the show, drawing 4-5 hour lines to glowing reviews. The launch lineup, as well as the Wii holiday list, is extremely solid. The market for third party developers is still not bright, but Nintendo came out of E3 in an incredibly (I'll say unbeatably) strong position for 2010. 3DS will be the must-have toy this Christmas. Grade: A+

Sony: Gran Turismo 5 3D is the kind of game that will not only move consoles, it will sell 3D TVs. Same for Killzone 3, albeit to a lesser extent.

Move is a mixed bag; I'm not sure that Sony benefits from having a Wii-too controller, but at least it'll be cheap ($49, although you need at least two for most games). I'm looking forward to The Fight 3D, but many of the other games look downright bad. And Socom 4 will provide the stress test for whether the controller adds anything to core gameplay. Grade: C

Microsoft: At a time when Microsoft should benefit from having the cheapest console on the market, they're going the opposite direction by introducing a $400 bundle featuring Kinect.

Kinect looks like a disaster. The launch lineup is horrible, offering nothing that hasn't been done before and better on Wii. The lack of a must-have first-party title will relegate the thing to casual gamers only, and the fragmentation of the dashboard into Kinect and non-Kinect controlled features is a bad idea. Add to that a prohibitive $150 price point and Kinect looks DOA.

But hey, they've still got Halo and Gears of War 3. And the Activision exclusivity window will prove popular with the base (who claim to hate Activision, but really don't). Grade: C-

I'm sure the Big 3 technologies will do well, but I'm not interested in any of them.

I won't be getting Natal because, after Microsoft wanted $99 to repair my 3rd RROD'd 360 in January, I will no longer support Microsoft financially.

I probably won't be getting Move, because the early tech demos look like really bad Wii rip-offs.

And I probably won't be getting 3DS unless the system makes a huge evolutionary jump graphically. I almost never carry any device other than my phone with me. I haven't played my DS or PSP in ages.

But probably the biggest reason is that I'm just aging out of the game world. I've only played 2 games through to completion this year (Heavy Rain and Dante's Inferno). I honestly truly thought God of War III was one of the worst PS3 games I'd ever played. I think I'm just not the market anymore.

"So will any of these 3D games work with the same 3D glasses I got from Avatar??? Can anyone explain???"

There are actually 3 versions of Avatar 3D. The original is 24fps, recorded on proprietary 3D cameras. That source was then upconverted for RealD (134fps) and IMAX 3D (?fps). Each version requires different glasses.

The 3D Blu-ray / TV tech shown at CES is 24fps but requires active shutter glasses. This article is interesting because it indicates that Super Stardust 3D will run at 120fps. I assume that would make it not only incompatible with any of the theatre glasses, but would make it incompatible with 3D Blu-ray / cable glasses as well.

(There were multiple 3D technologies shown at CES, some that required no glasses, but the standard supported by all major manufacturers is 24fps to conform to existing HDMI specifications).

JET