hi again. it is done, nintendos press conference is over. i just returned from their exclusive e3 party featuring the black eyed peas and i must say that i am slightly disappointed. the games shown were certainly lacking a visual quality (even red steel and i know the game looks better than what was shown this morning). and i fear that nintendo only refrained from naming their price because sony announced their ridiculously high price and they want to up it because even $250 would be significantly cheaper than the competition.

i am also disappointed because nintendo didnt show the star wars game. i just naturally assumed it would be shown at the press conference. i was wrong about that. i know for sure it exists and i was reassured by nintendo that reggie mentioned that "27 games would be playable and a few more".

anyway, we should get used to the fact that there is no more big gun we have all been expecting and i have been told about numerous times. just so we are not disappointed. i mean the games shown today will do me fine and will make for an excellent launch library. but the visual quality, as i said, needs to be upped from what they showed. maybe the projector was not the best, i dont know. but some games did look very gamecube-like.

lastly, i can reveal that sony decided on including gyroscopes as early as september or october. that is why it is even more puzzling that they only had one meagre demo to show for it.

now, you have heard about november 17th and the 500 and 600 euro / dollar versions. let me add that sonys conference on the whole was pretty sobering, some even thought it was outright weak.

gran turismo may have boasted 1920 x 1080 progressive scan and may have run at 60 fps. it may have drawn on 12 times the data that gt4 required on ps2. but it didnt even look twice as good.

okay, the psp can double as a rear-view mirror in formula one games. that is a cool idea. and heavenly sword, eight days and lair looked totally awesome.

but resistance - fall of man, assassins creed, gundam mobile suit, codearms assault, ridge racer 7, brothers in arms, tekken 6, sonic, virtua tennis 3, virtua fighter 5, stranglehold, fatal inertia, bladestorm and armored core 4 all looked xbox360 at best and got little or no applause.

sure, the controller functionality is a shock to nintendo fans. but consider that they only had one game to illustrate it with: warhawk by incognito. and consider that sonys controller will be useless for swinging a sword or lightsaber or for aiming at specific targets - since it just is not an extension of your arm. lastly, showing only one game betrays how late sony must have decided to jump on the bandwagon. i have absolutely no doubt that nintendo will own e3 this year.

again, hi. a number of questions in the last comments section, which is unavailable to me through my pda software. firstly, i am noting overall confidence with regard to wii. my informant regarding the star wars game is a very senior industry insider that is not affiliated with a specific developer or publisher. he believed that nintendo will steal the show. secondly, my first news item will air on wednesday, 8pm CET on rtl2, which is available via cable and satellite all over europe and parts of north africa. watch it because there will be some very exclusive footage in it. perhaps someone could record it, upload it to youtube or google video and post the link here. you may understand why i havent been able to post frequently in the last weeks.