e3

LOS ANGELES--If E3 2012 is The Year of the Second Screen, then what does that make Sony, a company that seems to have one too many solutions to a single problem? The PlayStation Vita and the PlayStation 3 form a perfect hardware tandem, theoretically: with as many inputs as a Wii U tablet and a screen just an inch smaller, the Vita could the PS3's best friend. … Read more

Sony Entertainment of America announced today at the E3 show a new educational peripheral for the PlayStation 3 -- the Wonderbook -- that focuses on educating children through interactive books and documents.

The Wonderbook appears similar to a book, but rather serves as an augmented reality (AR) pad that works with the PS3's PlayStation Eye camera (and PlayStation Move) to display an interactive book on-screen. The $39.99 Wonderbook and Blu-ray, due later this year, represent a new direction for Sony, a company that in the past primarily used its gaming devices to deliver entertainment content.

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Speaking to thousands of press and observers at Sony's E3 press conference, PlayStation CEO and President Jack Tretton spoke fondly of the Vita's future. One major reason for his enthusiasm: 60 new games will arrive for the Vita in 2012, which the device sorely needs.

Those wanting more items to play might also find the upcoming availability of PlayStation 1 games for Vita appealing, including major hits like Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy VII. The PSP also played PSOne games, so nothing truly mesmerizing here. … Read more

Later this week, PlayStation Plus members can download 12 games free, including major titles such as Infamous 2, LittleBigPlanet 2, and Saints Row 2. The company expects to start bringing more free games to the table each month, suggested PlayStation President and CEO Jack Tretton at Sony's E3 press conference. … Read more

Quantic Dream, the first developer to speak at Sony's E3 2012 press conference, confirmed a new PlayStation 3 exclusive interactive psychological action thriller game named Beyond: Two Souls. The title uses a new game engine, and appeared similar to Quantic's previous work, Heavy Rain.

Quantic video game designer David Cage announced the game to the crowd of thousands, noting the title stars Hollywood actress Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes. In a real-time gameplay demo at E3, Quantic showed off Page's character using telekinetic powers to defend herself from attackers. The level of detail and accuracy in the facial animations of the video game character appeared far beyond the high level already set by Heavy Rain.

"For the first time in a video game, we will live the life of a character," Cage said. … Read more

Get ready to get your game on. E3 has begun:

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, called E3 for short, has kicked off. It's the big video game conference of the year, and even though the show has just begun, it looks like this is the year of the second screen. Both the Wii U and the Xbox 360 are showing off ways to tie tablet screen interaction with what's on the television, creating a richer game and entertainment experience. You can catch all our continuing coverage of the show at cnet.com/e3.

Nintendo's press conference isn't … Read more

Joseph Kaminski, Ariel Nunez, and Richard Peterson all chime in as guest hosts on today's episode while Jeff fends off Kings fans at E3 this week, so don't forget to check out all of CNET's show coverage this week.

We'll wait on Jeff's return to go over all the gaming news going on, but in the meantime we'll check out a couple stories from today's rundown. Joey joins us today to lend his parenting experience to the rumor that Facebook might starting allowing kids under 13 to sign up for an account.

Kids won't be able to just do whatever they want, however -- they'll have restricted access that links their profile to a parent's so they can decide who gets friended, and who doesn't.… Read more

As many of my readers know, I'm not a video game fan, nor I am I a big TV fan. So sitting virtually through a two-hour E3 keynote address, chock-full of video game first-person-shooter previews...kill me now (pun intended).

But there were a couple of interesting bits from Microsoft at its E3 unveiling. One of these -- about which there had been conflicting earlier leaks -- was something called SmartGlass technology. But despite a few mentions and demos, I still felt as if I had no idea what SmartGlass is after watching the keynote. And it looks like … Read more

LOS ANGELES--You can forget about your dreams of an Xbox 360 Portable. That's so 2006. No, at this year's E3, Microsoft did something much more surprising: instead of getting proprietary, it hopped on everyone else's platform instead.

Xbox SmartGlass was the touted application, service, technology -- whatever you want to call it -- that stood for a new product at Microsoft's E3 press conference this morning in Los Angeles. It needed some jolt of new produce excitement, arguably, and SmartGlass can stand in as this year's "what is that?" buzzword, a second-screen concept for turning seemingly any smartphone or tablet into an additional display when watching movies, playing games, or browsing online. … Read more