E-Mail This Article to a Friend What the #$*! do we know? The Big Three have revealed their next-gen hardware. Let the speculation and fanboy-ism begin! BY MITCH KRPATA

It used to be difficult to find out information about the Electronic Entertainment Expo, remember? In the early days of the industry's biggest trade show, one had to wait for nightly reports from the few reputable video game web sites. Even as those sites added grainy video clips to their offerings, fans still had difficulty grasping the sights from the show floor.

That hasn't been a problem this year. In addition to rapid-fire updates from the big game sites like Gamespot and IGN, legitimate news outlets such as CNN are providing an admirable amount of coverage. The usually execrable G4 network, with its continuous live coverage from the show floor, is proving an invaluable resource this year (sadly, there's still no escape from their on-air, er, talent). As a result, anyone with an interest in games has seen as much of the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Revolution as the journalists at the Los Angeles Convention Center – and many have already formed aggressive opinions.

A perusal of a few internet message boards – places where the magnitude of one's opinion is more important than its basis in fact – reveals gamers already taking sides. Eager to secure a spot on the winning team, some people are already attempting to bury the consoles they predict will "lose." Xbox 360's early launch date entices some, but the apparently superior hardware of the PlayStation 3 is hard to ignore. As for the Nintendo, well… we love Nintendo, even when they show us nothing but a black box. But right now the web is rife with speculation, so we need to take a step back and look at what we actually know.

Xbox 360

The early launch of the Xbox 360 (in time for Christmas 2005) would appear to work in the system's favor. Then again, Sega made headlines when they rushed the Saturn to market, and that system's failure sent the company into a tailspin that would eventually result in their leaving the hardware market for good (despite their fantastic effort with the Dreamcast). However, the theory seems to be that if the Xbox 360 can make it to market with a quality online game – for example, if EA Sports delivers for the system the only next-gen Madden 2006 – then it will be able to grab an insurmountable chunk of the market.

That theory strikes me as severely flawed. Given the choice between spending $50 on a title like Madden for the current Xbox or PlayStation 2, both of which will be online-enabled, or however many hundreds of dollars it will take to get a new system, the game, and the next generation of Xbox Live, which would casual players use? Madden is consistently among the best-selling games of a year, but its cross-platform nature means it's not the kind of killer app that generates hardware sales. Hardware manufactures need exclusives – remember, if Halo didn't exist, we wouldn't even be talking about a new Microsoft console.

Not that the Xbox 360 doesn't promise any titles at that level. Microsoft is aiming for a spring 2006 release date for Halo 3, or whenever Sony releases the PlayStation 3. Given the impact the previous two games had on hardware sales (not to mention that Microsoft credits Halo 2, released in November 2004, with doubling the Xbox Live subscriber base), it seems a safe bet that Halo 3 will move some units. Also looking fantastic is Gears of War, from the makers of Unreal. Whether Gears of War will be a must-have, triple-A title is much harder to determine.

PlayStation 3

Here's where Sony has one major advantage: their brand has nearly become the genericized trademark the Nintendo Entertainment System used to be. Remember? Parents used to refer to all video games systems as "Nintendo," whether they were talking about the NES, the Sega Genesis, or the 3DO. That's no longer the case. Now, the preferred nomenclature is "PlayStation." You can't buy that kind of consumer awareness. Well, maybe you can, but not everyone is able to get it.

The consensus seems to be that Sony is delivering the most powerful hardware this time around. Truthfully, bandying about terms like "teraflops" doesn't mean much to all but a small segment of the populace, and it's hard to know exactly why the PS3's two teraflops are superior to the 360's alleged one teraflop. Sure sounds impressive, but what does that actually mean? The Xbox is a computational monster that outstrips the PlayStation 2 in just about every category, but that hasn't translated into greater market share for Microsoft.

It does seem beyond debate, however, that Sony's unveiling of their new console was orchestrated and executed very well. Whereas Microsoft tripped over its own feet with an underwhelming special that aired last week on MTV, Sony debuted with some astonishing footage. Fight Night Round 3, from EA Sports, looked in its limited demonstration almost hyper-real, with clear modeling of the fighters' skin, bone, and muscle. And the footage from a Killzone sequel left me grasping for adjectives. The graphics rival those of the highest-end gaming PCs currently available (there are whispers that Sony showed pre-renders based on their system specs, and not real-time gameplay footage).

But cutting-edge home computers cost several thousand dollars, which is still prohibitively expensive for the mass market Sony has conquered with previous iterations of the PlayStation. With the technological advancements Sony is touting for the PS3, not least of which is the decision to go with Blu-Ray instead of DVD as the software medium, one wonders about the price point at launch. While both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 offer built-in features like web connectivity and wireless controls, the sheer amount of hardware Sony promises makes it impossible to imagine how they could launch for even as little as $300. Anything above that would be suicide.

Nintendo Revolution

Nintendo is an interesting case. The GameCube, while a fine system, was never a beast. It was capable of great things, as Resident Evil 4 amply proved, but with its chunky design and emphasis on cute, non-traditional types of games (Animal Crossing, anyone?), the GameCube appeared to be targeting a different demographic than the PS2 and Xbox. That's not a bad thing, as Xbox or PS2 partisans would have you believe. Nintendo clearly believes there's an untargeted market that they can have all for themselves. But is there?

It's hard to tell from their E3 presentation. The Revolution, as shown, was barely more than a shell, and there was no video demonstration of its capabilities. Nor were any specific titles announced, which is bizarre considering the system is to launch sometime in 2006. In fact, with Nintendo's presentation also spending a great deal of time on the Nintendo DS, the new Game Boy Micro, and the new Zelda game, crucial information about the Revolution was in short supply. With speculation running rampant that its competitors will launch at prohibitive price points, Nintendo seems to be the only company committed to delivering a mass-market product right out of the gate.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Revolution is a feature that allows gamers to download and play classic Nintendo games, from the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the Nintendo 64 (the system will be backwards-compatible with GameCube titles). It will be possible to revisit classic franchises like Metroid and Zelda, and that's something no other company can offer. But frustrating questions remain. Will there be a charge to download the games? More importantly, will third-party games be available? While the lack of classic third-party titles would not be a crippling blow to the system's chances of survival, imagine being able to download a perfect version of Final Fantasy III or any of the Mega Man series.

It's tempting to try to declare a winner from this first round of press conferences, but let's show some restraint. We really haven't seen anything yet. Infinium Labs attempted to stave off a barrage of bad press by presenting their Phantom console at last year's E3, and managed to quiet some of the doubters. This year, they don't even have a booth. Obviously the new consoles from the Big Three will not be vaporware, but for the time being we know next to nothing.

More importantly, it looks as though all three consoles will have much to recommend them. And while it's still probably out of the range of most people's wallets to get all three at launch, who would have thought that there would still be killer apps for the current generation this late into their lifecycles (like Resident Evil 4, God of War, and Jade Empire)? Every system has something to recommend it, and there's no reason the same won't be true of the next generation.