In June every year, the entertainment capital of the world, Los Angeles becomes the cynosure of all eyes for a reason other than movies and Hollywood. It is the time when it hosts the annual trade show for the computer and video games industry, the Electronic Entertainment Expo — better known as E3. This is where the gaming industry’s biggest hardware and software launches and announcement are made.

3D consoles
At this year’s recently concluded E3 show, gaming major Nintendo delighted the gaming community by pulling out the proverbial rabbit from its hat with the unveiling of the Nintendo 3DS. One of the worst kept secrets of gamedom, the 3DS is a portable dual screen gaming console that offers — believe it or not — 3D viewing without making it necessary for you to don a pair of stereoscopic glasses! At a juncture when TVs and even PCs are going 3D, can gaming consoles be left behind?
The 3DS’s screen conveys an amazing sense of depth as well as extrusion to the naked eye. The first breakthrough product to shun uncomfortable eyewear for three dimensional viewing, the 3DS ups the technological ante not just for the gaming industry but for the entertainment industry as well. While the 3.03-in touchscreen in the lower half offers a 320x240 resolution, the main 3.52-in 3D screen crams in 800x240 pixels. You need to be directly in front of the screen to fathom the 3D effect. A little to the side and you view blurry imagery.
The device offers not one — or two — but as many as three cameras. The pair on the outside allows 3D photo capture, while the third one’s required for some games. These 3D imaging possibilities will eventually allow for augmented reality applications. Apart from 3DS and DS game slots, the 3DS offers an SD card slot. Then there’s Wi-Fi, a 4-inch stylus and slide pad analog joystick controls.

New arrivals
A gamut of games from Nintendo and third party developers — including the Street Fighter series, Resident Evil, DJ Hero, Metal Gear Solid, Mario Kart, and Sonic etc — are expected by the time the handheld launches in March 2011. No word on pricing yet.

Enter Kinect
The other biggie at E3 this time was Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360. Long known by its code-name, “Project Natal”, this hands-free, physical controller-free, motion-sensing gaming sensor module hooks directly into an Xbox 360 console and converts your body itself into the controller. The rather diminutive plug-in carries a camera, audio sensors, plus motion-sensing technology that track as many as 48 points of movement of the human body.
Not just that, Kinect recognises faces and voices. The camera, with its high resolution tracking, maps your body parts and the microphone responds to your voice commands. In fact, with Kinect you won’t really need to memorise commands, fiddle around with parameters and tweak settings. It will all happen naturally. So to race a car, you only need two hands in the air that’ll pantomime holding and moving an imaginary steering wheel to drive as you would if you were weaving in and out of track traffic and flooring the non-existent pedal to accelerate. Kinect will be priced at around $150 and is slated for launch in November 2010.