neurological dryer lint

"i love the power glove... it's so bad"

i've been keeping up on the initial press conferences by the big three before E3 started today. let it be said that i'm still a nintendo fanboy at heart, even though i don't fire up any nintendo-made consoles frequently any more. my NES emulator is more reliable than our hardware console, and the SNES is buried in a box, missing a power supply (and i have a quality emulator for that platform, too). the NES gets about as much attention as the Dreamcast does. basically i spend most of my time on Sony consoles now, the PSP getting less attention than it did before I ditched the Xbox the other week.

so i'm playing a lot of Sony stuff, wondering what the PS3 will be like, knowing it will be priced far out of my range, and without a single compelling reason to buy one. yesterday's press conference seemed to cement that fact - $500 for the 20GB, no Memory Stick/SD support, no wireless. $600 for the 60GB and the ability to plug in my PSP memory stick and play the media on it on my TV.

some of you old school gamers may remember back in the day when the Neo Geo console came out. that thing was basically a home arcade machine that cost $650 and had games that hit the vicinity of $200 each. unless your parents were stacked, you weren't playing that machine. that's what the PS3 is sounding like - the sticker shock for the premium Xbox360 at $400 is probably at the very edge of reason for your average parent. up that to $600 - no way little Jimmy's getting that under the tree. it's not totally in Neo Geo range, but it's close enough.

so i've pretty much dismissed any possibility of getting that machine - unless i fall in love with Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy in the next six months and need to have the next version.

so then there's the Wii. the furor over the name made me laugh a bit, with 'lifelong' nintendo supporters threatening to fall on their power gloves unless it got changed back to the Revolution. it's a nice name. a little goofy, yes; i ask, though, have you ever seen this company's products? i will feel a little silly walking into Gamestop and asking for "Metroid Prime for the Wii", true. i got over the terrible "Xbox" name, though.

anyway. nintendo's press conference today poured the concrete - I will be getting a Wii on release day, no question. the new Zelda - actual swordfighting using the WiiMote - it's a thrilling concept, as well as providing plenty more ammo for my wife to mock me. metroid prime 3, the new mario, excite truck, yada yada... all of them look as compelling as ever.

what i'm excited about is their whole thing on getting non-gamers interested. at the conference they announced a WiiSports package that includes simple tennis, golf and baseball games. if something like that is available online, and the whole controller concept works as well as they're saying, then that's the killer app, the thing that's going to get one of these into a lot more living rooms. personally i think they should package it with the console. then it becomes the next Pong, or Pac Man - sheer word of mouth will get everyone buying it.

the virtual console thing - which we've talked about before - is just icing. but it's still the best icing you've ever eaten. the throwback controller shell is a little weird looking, though, but i'll pass judgement once i get my hands on it.

so microsoft... they've basically lost me as a gaming customer. i hear more horror stories about the 360's hardware problems... shoot, every demo machine of theirs that i've ever played in a store has locked up. no compelling games just yet - in fact the only thing that looks at all interesting on the 360 is playing Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and the just-announced Lumines Live and Contra on Xbox Live. i'm not even sure halo 3 could convince me to pick one up. sure, the trailer was pretty and suspenseful... i'm not in college anymore and i'm not sure how much i'd enjoy another halo.

i really hope they announce some more interesting PSP titles this E3. i know they're going to debut the GPS, Voice over IP, and City Guide tools... downloadable content, including PS1 emulation... i guess that's about as much as i can ask for. no, it's not - give me a streaming audio player that doesn't require the use of RSS. give me a solid RSS reader. an IM application. i won't need a UMPC.

think i could convince renee to take next year's vacation in LA so we could go to E3? i've always wanted to check it out.