Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)

The "Electronic Entertainment Expo" (also known as E3) is back again this year with tons of new games, consoles, and other goodies to showcase. Many new ideas have been put forward by some of the head franchises in the buisness such as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. All three have introduced their new consoles and we hope to see more of them and their features as this year goes on.

Sony, the creators of the first 3D-real time gaming console (Playstation) have just announced their newest console, officially named the "Playstation 3". While the price is not yet set, the release date is expected to be around Spring next year. SCE head Ken Kutaragi introduced this new machine as being a "supercomputer for computer entertainment." When PS2 came out, it was the most powerful gaming machine to date. Sadly, that only lasted for a short while when the XBOX was introduced as having much more power than the PS2. Now, Sony seems determined to never let that happen again. The PS3 currently has twice the power of the new XBOX (named the XBOX 360) and three times the speed. Sony also confirmed the use of Blu-ray discs (which can hold up to 6 times the size of regular DVDs) and backward compatibilty with the two previous Playstation consoles. Six usb slots, a Memory Stick Duo slot, an SD card slot, and a compact flash memory slot will also be added. The PS3 will contain two NVIDIA graphics cards and a new feature refered to as a cell chip which will give this computer its supercomputer-like power and performance.

Microsoft's XBOX 360 is similar to the PS3 in many ways but instead of dishing out amazing power, it's focused mainly on looks, interface, and customization. The outside has a really cool look featuring interchangable face plates and a