The big three hardware makers aren't the only ones to offer events with uncomfortable seating this week. Activision was probably the winner of the 'most confusingly run event' award, as their welcome demonstrations of Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero III, and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground were interspersed with walk-ons by folks like Stan Lee, Slash, and Tony Hawk himself. Jamie Kennedy apparently MC'd, with lackluster results. THQ's event, meanwhile, offered several kinds of sweaty men and uninterested female models, while also showing off new products like Conan, Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon, and De Blob. Throughout, the company pledged heavy support for the Wii. Midway's event was much more to the point, with news of a downloadable Stranglehold demo coming in August, the title Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Prom announced, and a bit about Blacksite Area 51. There will be a demo for that game too.

There's nothing that excites gamers like statistics; pie charts and graphs dominated the opening of Nintendo's E3 conference. Fortunately, the event had more than just business to discuss. They unveiled a 'Wii Zapper' housing that allows the Wiimote and Nunchuck to combine into a light gun, which will retail for about twenty bucks. They showed off a number of third party titles to prove the outside-the-company commitment, such as a Soul Calbur and Medal of Honor (which will be playable online) designed specifically for the console. Hardcore gamers were the focus of the early portion of the conference: Smash Brothers Brawl has a launch date of December 3rd in the US. They heavily hyped online play, with several EA titles and a Pokemon-like Dragon Quest title. Mario Kart for Wii will be launching early next year, will be playable online, and will have a Wiimote driving wheel housing packaged with the game. With the hardcore discussed, the attention shifted to mass market games. A new channel, 'Check Mii Out' will allow for a HotorNot-style voting mechanism and contests to make the most realistic celebrity Mii. There was much discussion of the Nintendo approach to expanding audience; Super Mario Galaxy was brought up as bridging that gap, as a second player can 'assist' the primary player in various ways. Galaxy will be launching on November 12th. Targetted more directly at this 'outside the norm' group was WiiFit, which uses a dedicated device called the Wii Balance Board. It allows for a daily exercise routine, can track data over time (and compare it to other family members) and includes some simple minigames like a soccer heading game. The press conference ended with Reggie Fils-Aimee revealing Nintendo's goal to make videogaming one of the pre-eminent forms of entertainment, across all age groups.

Sony fans undoubtedly cheered the news of a $100 drop in price for the 60GB PS3, but even with the price drop there are several issues surrounding the console. 1up reports that the 80GB PS3 is following the lead of the EU-released PS3s by removing the Emotion engine and relying on software emulation for backwards compatibility. In an effort to decrease costs Sony continues to reduce features and develop their product. Meanwhile, Konami executive Kazumi Kitaue doesn't see much impact from the cut ... and in fact told Reuters that they're seriously considering a multi-platform release for Metal Gear Solid 4. "Kitaue said Konami may need to expand the target hardware for its blockbuster fighting game Metal Gear Solid, which has so far been developed for Sony's PlayStation machines, to other consoles in the future to recoup development costs ... The release of the latest version of Metal Gear Solid series is expected to help lure hard-core gamers to the PS3 and alleviate concerns over scarcity of strong PS3 titles. Underscoring sluggish PS3 sales and robust demand for the Wii, Nintendo shot past Sony in market value last month and bumped the Tokyo-based electronics conglomerate off the list of Japan's 10 most valuable companies."

Gamasutra asks questions directly of analysts on a semi-regular basis, in a feature they call 'Analyze This'. This week they quiz analysts about the rising influence of casual players, and what this means for the dedicated hardcore gamer. The ubiquitous Michael Pachter: "I think some portion of family growth will come from aging of original Xbox owners, who will have families of their own and will likely play games with their children. I also think that newer features on the Elite, like the 80GB hard drive, will encourage more family activities, like downloading TV shows and movies. In essence, I don't see [Microsoft] trying to cannibalize the Wii audience, so much as to trying to offer an alternative with the Xbox 360 as the home media center. I don't think that there is any real threat to the long-term survival of the Xbox 360."

The Wall Street Journal has comments from John Riccitiello, EA's new CEO, who has an interesting observation: maybe we should make more original games. "In his first in-depth comments since taking the job in April, John Riccitiello says he worries that the Redwood City, Calif., company and others in the industry make too many games that lack innovation. He says EA and others need both to push more aggressively beyond traditional audiences to court 'casual' consumers and to experiment more with new sales approaches -- outside the norm of selling $50 to $60 discs with 40-hour games that he says few players ever finish. 'We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play,' Mr. Riccitiello said in an interview." Perhaps looking beyond yearly updates to established franchises might be a way to go too. We've seen EA form a casual studio, re-organize the flowchart, adopt the Wii wholeheartedly ... does anyone see EA actually reinventing itself, or is this too little too late?

Officially Microsoft is putting on a brave face, saying they won't drop the 360's price even in the console's weakest market: Japan. Just the same (probably in anticipation of Sony's PS3 price drop), the San Jose Mercury news says the company is secretly working on preparing a lower cost Xbox 360 SKU. Called 'Falcon', it's a cost-reduced system using 65nm chips instead of the at-launch 90nm electronics. This ties right into Michael Pachter's expectation of such a cut; it should be noted he doesn't see the DS or Wii prices moving any time soon. Related to all of this, Newsweek's LevelUp blog has two great interviews today: a Peter Moore discussion harkening back to last week's warranty announcement, and a chat with Jack Tretton about the price cut and the 360's hardware issues.

Gamespot is reporting that the rumoured price drop from earlier this week is a reality. Starting on July 10th, the current 60GB model will sell for $499. Coming to US shores in August is the 80GB version only available in South Korea at the moment, which will retail for $599. They're bundling that unit with Motorstorm, so it's not just another 20 gigs for $100. "The price drop further indicates that, after a slow start, Sony is now aggressively trying to expand its customer base in the US. The move comes none too soon. According to the latest figures from industry-research firm the NPD Group, the PS3 only sold 82,000 units in the US in May, compared to the Xbox 360's 155,000 units and the Wii's 338,000 units." So, is this it? Will this price drop make you buy a PS3, or are you still holding off for the big games this fall?

This week both Nintendo and Microsoft's downloadable game services have some great titles to offer. The Wii will soon be playing host to Super Mario Bros. 2, Ecco: Tides of Time, and Dragon Spirit . Xbox Live Arcade, meanwhile, has up an update of Missile Command . This latest follows on the heels of Pac-Man: CE , a worthy and well-received updating of the arcade classic. Ars' comment about Ecco is dead on: "I used to love this game, just swimming around and doing those flips out of the water as Ecco was pretty calming. Then you tried to actually play the game and found out just how excruciatingly difficult it could be. While the Dreamcast update lost some of the magic, the original Ecco is still a neat twist on 2D games. Who knew that taking a platformer and setting it underwater would be so much fun?"

HaymarketRiot writes "N'Gai Croal from Newsweek has given us a broad outline of Nintendo's plans for downloadable original content. To be called 'WiiWare', the company will be selling these all-new games via the Wii's Virtual Store for Wii points. Not only are they looking to big-name developers for these titles, but small garage-style shops as well. 'Shorter, original, more creative games from small teams with big ideas; these are the buzzwords that you'll be hearing from Nintendo when its Wednesday announcement goes wide. Fils-Aime told us that while Nintendo, as the retailer, would itself determine the appropriate pricing for each game on a per-title bases, the games themselves would not be vetted by Nintendo. Instead, Nintendo would only check the games for bugs and compatibility, with developers and publishers responsible for securing [a rating lower than AO with the ESRB].' For more, N'Gai has an interview with Reggie Fils-Aime on the subject. Unfortunately, we won't be seeing a finished product until 2008."

GameDaily reports on news from Reuters; today for the first time Nintendo outpaced Sony's market value. Note that this isn't Sony's games wing, but the entirety of the Sony corporation. Investor confidence spurred by brisk sales of the DS and Wii pushed Nintendo (briefly) into the top ten earners in the nation of Japan, with such rarefied organizations as Honda, Toyota, and Canon. "Nintendo's shares rose to a record high 46,350 yen in the morning, increasing its overall market value to 6.57 trillion yen ($53 billion), which allowed it to surpass Sony's market capitalization for a time. The company's shares, however, finished the day a bit lower putting Nintendo back in 11th place behind Sony, but still ahead of Panasonic maker Matsushita, whose sales are over eight times larger than Nintendo's. Nintendo's market value closed at 6.39 trillion yen on Monday, just below Sony's 6.48 trillion yen."

If you've been following this story so far, it shouldn't come as a shock that Take-Two has shelved Manhunt 2 for the moment, while they decide what to do next. The company is considering its options, and still fully supports the game as a 'work of art'. "Take-Two Interactive Software has temporarily suspended plans to distribute Manhunt 2 for the Wii or PlayStation platforms while it reviews its options with regard to the recent decisions made by the British Board of Film Classification and Entertainment Software Rating Board ... We continue to stand behind this extraordinary game. We believe in freedom of creative expression, as well as responsible marketing, both of which are essential to our business of making great entertainment." Analysts have already started weighing in, with some seeing this as unfairly targeting the GTA-maker for previous 'sins'.

Raver32 wrote with a link to a CNN article about the end of Ken Kutaragi's time at Sony. His departure was announced back in April, and now leaves Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) headed by Kazuo Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment's (SCE) former president and COO. "Though no longer a board member, Kutaragi will hold an advisory post at the gaming unit, according to SCE official Sayoka Henmi. The departure of Kutaragi, an icon among gamers, marks the end of an era at Sony Corp. that saw the company long dominate the video game industry with its flagship PlayStation consoles. But it also highlights troubles at Sony amid a series of blunders over the rollout of its PlayStation 3 and intense competition from Nintendo Co.'s popular Wii console and Microsoft's Xbox 360."

Gamasutra has several coverage elements about last month's NPD figures, which unsurprisingly show Nintendo's continued dominance of console sales numbers. A combined 569,000 units sold for Pokemon Diamond and Pearl probably helped some. "According to official sources and a number of independent reports, total industry sales were up 49 percent to $815 million for the month, with hardware sales up 79 percent to $221 million, and the Nintendo DS selling an impressive 423,000 units for the month. The rest of the hardware sales revealed that the Wii sold an impressive 338,000 units for the month, with the Xbox 360's sales down somewhat at around 155,000 units and the PlayStation 3 sold just 82,000 during May in the U.S. On the handheld side of things, the PSP trailed the DS but still sold around 221,000 units, and the Game Boy Advance sold just 80,000 units for the month. Rounding off the major players, the PlayStation 2 sold 188,000 units during May." Those DS sales are nothing to sneeze at, as an analyst group estimates that by 2011 there will be some 112 Million DS units sold ... with an 89% install base in Japan. The site has a further breakdown of last month's numbers, analyzing the dip in overall console sales and the potentials of each platform. The Curmudgeon Gamer is the mind behind that analysis, and he had two further points to make about the numbers on his site.

Via GameDaily a Financial Times interview with with Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's CEO, gives fans the first hope that price cuts may be coming soon. Lauding the Wii's performance in last month's NPD numbers, Stringer says that Sony is looking to 'refine' the PS3's pricepoint. "'Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise, and a very good business model, compared with ours . . . because it's cheaper,' Mr Stringer said in a video interview. 'That [price cuts] is what we are studying at the moment. That's what we are trying to refine.' Sir Howard said he expected 'energy [in PS3 sales] by Christmas, and then you will begin to see break-out games'. Sony is launching a virtual-world game called Home this year, and up to 30 other games."

Croakyvoice writes "DCEmu is hosting the worlds first Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Gamecube Homebrew Coding Contest with prizes of $500 on offer for Homebrew and Emulators for the Wii and Gamecube, The hope is that through this contest an exploit will be released that will allow full homebrew on the Nintendo Wii without a Modchip. Gamecube Homebrew is already on the Wii with a host of systems emulated such as Snes, Genesis, Gameboy and Neogeo."

Next Generation offers up an exhaustive analysis of previous console generation price cuts, and concludes that we are definitely due for some cheaper next-gen action sometime in the near future. The piece includes charts of lowering system prices, as well as a breakdown of how many consoles sold at various price tiers. "Certainly we can use history as a guide, but there are limits to its use for prognostication. The price drops this generation may happen in ways entirely different from what has been suggested above. Maybe the $300 console this generation will be what the $200 console was last generation. Maybe Microsoft will forge ahead with its current price structure until after Halo 3 has come and gone. Maybe Sony will bless the PlayStation 3 with a 33% price drop sometime this year. And maybe Nintendo will give the Wii a small price drop by removing Wii Sports from the package. Those could happen, but don't bet on it."

In addition to the truly excellent trailer, yesterday Bethesda Softworks let slip the platforms on which Fallout 3 will be playable. CVG reports on an article in the upcoming issue of Game Informer magazine, which describes some of the gameplay and states the title will be on offer for the PC, 360, and PlayStation 3 sometime in Fall of 2008. Meanwhile, Eurogamer is reporting that Capcom won't be letting Resident Evil 5 out of the holding pen until at least April of next year. For now they're relying on the Wii port of the title and other offerings to see them through the year. Finally, if you were hoping to play Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360, you'll be waiting a long time. IGN has word that there are no plans for any FF games on Microsoft's console.

simoniker writes "How do you make a game that will stand apart from countless similar titles? Harmonix designer Chris Canfield (Guitar Hero II) thinks he knows, and is talking about it in a new editorial, 'Establishing A Beachhead In A Crowded Genre'. He comments that one of the key things you can do is to 'Gut key elements of the design': "Examples of this in your genre might include: sniper rifles in an FPS, powerslides in a racing game, minigames in a Wii title, healing crates, bosses, rocket jumps, or any other big or small element. Of course, the really good features shouldn't be the only ones on the chopping block. Not only will this free up time in the schedule that would otherwise be occupied by been-done features, but it creates space for genuinely new solutions and makes producers very, very happy.""

HoboBob writes "It has been suggested that Nintendo will be unveiling some new hardware for the Wii at the E3 media festival, and some are speculating that it could be a hard drive. According to the article: 'Confirmation back in April that Neo Geo games will begin being added to Wii's Virtual Console download service adds weight to the speculation, considering Neo Geo games are huge — some clocking in it at up to 330MB. One of those bad boys would put serious strain on the Wii's memory.'"

GameDaily reports on new numbers from Nintendo, discussing their ongoing success with the Wii's Virtual Console offering. According to the piece, there are now over 100 games available on the service, and some 4.7 Million downloads have been transacted since the system's launch late last year. "Nintendo has been updating the Wii Shop with new Virtual Console games every Monday. The top five downloads worldwide to date have been Super Mario Bros. (NES), Super Mario 64 (N64), Mario Kart 64 (N64), Super Mario World (SNES), and The Legend of Zelda (NES). 'With an Internet connection rate reaching 40 percent, Wii owners have more options than ever to find the kinds of games they love to play,' says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. 'Beyond the Wii Shop Channel, all types of people are getting connected and checking out the information and entertainment options available on the Wii Menu. Whether voting, creating a Mii or just checking the weather, everyone has a favorite channel.'"