We have plenty of stories about the games at E3, but what about the hardware that runs those games? While roaming the busy halls of E3 I was able to snap a few photos of the stuff we should be seeing on store shelves in the fall / winter of this year. This includes multiple shots of the Playstation 3, some shots of the Wii and controllers, a few in hand shots of the new Nintendo DSlite, and some of the Xbox 360 accessories that were just announced.

Sony Playstation 3

First up is the Playstation 3, once again this year Sony decided to keep all of their “actual” units behind glass cases so we can see, not touch. This is probably for the better since it is my understanding that these units pictured below are just plastic housing for what eventually will be a Playstation 3.

I don’t know if the pictures can really show it, but this machine is large, like bigger than the original Xbox large. It is going to weigh in at 11 pounds and I am assuming this is without the power brick. The controller looks and feels just like a DualShock 2, however it is really, really light. The one I felt was a “wired” version and I doubt they have any batteries in it, but we will have to wait and see for the final product. You can see the standard USB type plug on the back of the controller which I would image is for charging the unit, also you can see the new Playstation button in the middle.

The rack mounted pictures above are actually the Playstation 3 development kits that Sony was using to showcase their games on the floor. What confused the hell out of me was why they had them on display? Most development kits at E3 are hidden, especially builds that aren’t even close to final hardware (Gamecube Wii anyone?) Microsoft was running their Xbox 360 floor demos last year on Apple G4 towers, and they had them extremely hidden and required a ballsy attendee to crack open a locked display case to take a shot of them. Sony just put them right on the floor behind very impressive glass cases. Honestly, while taking these photos I thought I was going to be escorted out of the booth for taking pictures of “prototype hardware.” But here I am today, writing a story about it and not in jail, yeah for me.

Nintendo Wii

Next up is Nintendo. Now really while the Wii hardware is certainly impressive, most people only cared to hear more about the controller and are not generally concerned with how the console looked itself. I personally would have liked to know much more than I do now. Like where are all the holes, vents, and ports? How does it take a standard DVD, a GameCube mini-DVD, and still slot load, how does that technology work? What does the attachment look like that you need to plug in to watch DVD movies? Where does that attachment go? What kind of video outputs will this be compatible with? What is in the controller, is it gyroscopic, does it do RF as well as infrared?

Just like Sony, the Wii was a display unit only and sat behind little glass boxes wherever you looked. Confirmed rumor has it that the units actually running the games were modified Gamecubes, but Nintendo did not showcase this and hid them behind kiosks that held the TVs. Once again it took some random guy who went where he wasn’t supposed to, ended up snapping a photo and sending the internet once again in to a hissy that the Wii was just a modified gamecube. Honestly folks, if a company hasn’t released final hardware do you really think they want to shove it all in a box six months before they go on sale and then showcase it off to a ton of people in a crowded convention center? That thing would be lifted and be on eBay 20 minutes after the show started. Also it just doesn’t make good business sense, price of components go up or down daily, might as well wait until the last minute to build that hardware. The picture on the right is of the various controller styles. I would imagine that Nintendo is going to sell the console itself rather cheap and then make an absolute killing on accesories; whenever little Johnny wants to play duckhunt, Mom has to go out and buy the thing that looks like a piece of PVC pipe to hold the Wii controller and pay $29.99 for it. Once again, good business strategy; anyone else wonder why Nintendo is the only gaming company that is actually making a large profit?

Nintendo DSlite

Speaking of Nintendo profits, lets jump right in to the DSlite which was on display for the first time in the US to a salivating crowd who can’t wait to get their massive hands on the tiny device in less than a month. Nintendo pretty much owns the portable market and to show their dominance they are releasing a slim version of their Nintendo DS that has a screen that is 4x as bright. And it is really bright, it is also quite small, at least in my hands. This is genius; now all the nerds with money will go out and rebuy a portable they already own for full price, selling their old DS to GameStop for $5, and a little kid buys it and gets hooked, gets older and buys a DSlite. The cycle never stops.

The pics are taken of Joe our resident, self-proclaimed Nintendo fanboy who cannot wait until these things hit the stores so he can buy one. I do not currently own a DS and am looking forward to buying one as well, if only to play my GBA games in such a nice bright screen, oh and the two DS games that I own (yes I buy games for consoles that I down own, no I don’t have time to explain that). The only thing I wish they actually had was the new stylus; we had to use the one attached to the kiosk which was obviously some random secure stylus, and not the one that will be packaged with the product (which is supposedly bigger than the orginal.)

Microsoft Xbox 360

Well the Xbox 360 has already arrived in stores, and the rumored “Xboy” didn’t show at E3 (thank God.) So what are we left with? Accessories, more and more accessories, gotta catch ‘em all. So this year they are actually pretty interesting, first is the unvealing of the often talked about Xbox Camera which is actually called the “Xbox Live Vision” according the the PR fluff. This actually surprised me because the thing is pretty thin, and actually pretty good looking for an accessory. I have been told that it has a nine foot USB 2.0 cord so you can put it on top of your television or entertainment center. Once again we are left out of some key details like frames per second, megapixels, what it actually does and why we would want to buy it, and when we can actually buy it. Many rumors are floating around saying that the camera supports movement tracking like the Sony Eye Toy; this is yet to be seen or confirmed so more on that soon…hopefully.

The big product on display however was the HD-DVD add on, which connects to your Xbox 360 via USB 2.0, and enables your console to play High Definition DVDs; Sony has Blu-Ray, Microsoft has HD-DVD. The key detail left out in this one is when is this going to hit shelves and on a nerd note, does this mean we are going to get an HDMI or DVI-D connector cable for the Xbox 360? Lik Sang seems to think so, but there has been no mention of this functionality yet. Going into the show, I didn’t know how this would look, and I wondered how they would theme it so it is compatible with the 360’s appearance. Well, the answer was apparently to make it look exactly like the Xbox 360, just external DVD drive size. Now I assume everyone here has been loving my photography so far, but I couldn’t really do this one justice, I will throw up one of my shots just to appease you, but I will include two of the Microsoft PR shots so you can see important things that I couldn’t capture, like the back of the drive itself.

The other items are the typical accessory fare, we have a new wireless headset, a wireless driving wheel and pedals, and a wireless gaming receiver for Windows. The coolest of the bunch, however, is the wireless gaming receiver for Windows. This wasn’t my impression initially, it looked like a device you plug in to your computer and you can use your wireless Xbox 360 controller. Yippee another accessory to buy. However, after reading the PR stuff, this actually works for the wireless headset, and the wireless driving wheel and pedals as well. So really if you buy these accessories, you are buying them for two platforms, your Windows XP PC and your Xbox 360. I thought that was pretty cool.

Not pictured but in the PR stuff:
Xbox 360 Memory Unit (256 MB). With four times more capacity than the original, gamers can easily store and transfer even more Xbox 360 saved games, Xbox Live profiles, full Xbox Live Arcade titles and other entertainment content downloaded from Xbox Live Marketplace. Of course these are all followed by the “don’t know a price, or when it will be released” tagline, but hopefully we will get more information soon.

So there you go, that was all of the console hardware I could find at E3, I assume there was a bunch of stuff I missed, but I guess I was busy playing the games and not oogling the technology, stupid me. I wish I had more details on pretty much every single thing I listed here, but we will have to wait until more details are available.

| Quickly bookmark this post at      |