Animal Crossing - City Folk

• Platform - Wii
• Release - Later this year
• Looks and plays like previous installments
• Send text messages to friends or the message board with the usual mail system.
• Makes use of the new Wii Speak peripheral, which isn't a headset but a room microphone.

Wii Sports Resort

• Full sequel to Wii Sports, includes the Wii MotionPlus.
• MotionPlus is a new Wiimote plug-in (with pass-through for the nunchuck) which brings even more precise motion control to the Wii, specifically advanced positional and rotational data.
• Beach-resort themed, features tons of new minigames. Three were shown off:
• Disc Dog - Frisbee mini-game. With a dog. Sorta like darts.
• Jetski - Hold the Wiimote & nunchuck like handlebars, twist rapidly to accelerate like real throttle controls
• Swordfighting - Like boxing, but with SWORDS. Controls look really tight.
• Launches next spring

Wii Music

• Makes you look like a complete spaz in BRAND NEW WAYS.
• Far more laid-back than Guitar Hero or Rockband, you just sorta do whatever you want vaguely in time and something resembling music happens.
• It has a cowbell. COWBELL HERO LIVES.
• Unfortunately, it looks like it would only be enjoyable if you're really young or really drunk.
• Launches later this year

Miscellaneous Wii Games

• Shawn White Snowboarding - It is what it says, relies on the Balance Board for primary input. Fall/Winter 2008.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Looks great for a Wii game, will probably give us the proper Wiimote Lightsaber control we've always wanted, even moreso than The Force Unleashed. Winter 2008.
• Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party - Yet another Rabbids party game, now with Balance Board input. You have one of those, right?
• Call of Duty: World at War - Coop war stuff, P1 uses the zapper, P2 helps out with the Wiimote

Miscellaneous DS Games

• Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades - Yes, we're getting a sequel this early. No we don't know much about it, but it'll be compatible with the current version and you'll be able to trade songs back and forth.
• Spore Creatures - Stripped-down Spore is still coming, it's got a reworked creature creator and an analog to the early portion of the full game. The ability to trade critters with your friends is still in, just with the usual hoops you'll have to jump through for a DS game.
• Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia - Sequel to 2006's Pokemon Ranger. Like most Pokemon games, it's like those which precede it directly, with some minor upgrades and more things to enslave. Out on 10 NOV 2008.
• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown - We have no idea what this will be. Top-down old-school GTA? Third-person new-school GTA? It is a mystery. Later this year.
• Cooking Navi - IT'S A COOKBOOK. A COOKBOOOOOOOOOOOK.

No Megaton, Nintendo? Nothing from Square Enix's remake-machine? No real new hardware? No Mother 3? No retooled less-lame online system? For shame.

PS3

• Resistance 2 - Sony's big focus this time around. Unfortunately, to me, it just looks like more of the same stuff. It's a shooter. There are aliens. Big aliens. Who cares?
• Little Big Planet - Now a suitable replacement for Powerpoint! Sony's usual "HERE HAVE SOME NUMBERS" section was presented via a Little Big Planet level. It was neat, but I just don't see how it'll be fun.
• Greatest Hits: They're $29.99 . . but, if you have a PS3 you probably already have all these games. Motorstorm, Resistance, Warhawk, COD 3, Fight Night, NFS: Carbon, Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six Vegas, Oblivion, Ninja Gaiden Sigma.
• YET ANOTHER FUCKING SKU. New 80Gb model coming in September, identical to the 40Gb model but with a larger hard drive. Sorry guys, still don't have it right. We need backwards compatibility, Wifi, and a user-upgradable hard drive. Give us that at $300 - or hell even $350 - and we'll consider it.
• God of War 3, no surprise whatsoever. No gameplay, just a trailer. Still quite a ways off.
• Infamous. Superhero sandbox, reminds me of Crackdown, but moderately less goofy. Spring 2009.
• Hilariously named "Massive Action Game", large-scale multiplayer shooter, supports up to 256 players, character growth, ongoing campaigns, squad-based combat, PS3 exclusive. You know, like Planetside, but hopefully not terrible.

PS2

• LOL 130 TITLES COMING THIS YEAR, CONSISTING OF NOTHING BUT EXCITING SHOVELWARE AND LOW-RES PORTS!
• STILL MORE SKUs! Lego Batman Bundle coming later this year for $199, features a PS2, Lego Batman, and one of the Justice League DVDs. Who the hell is still buying the PS2 at retail?

PSN

• Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty - $14.95 short sequel to R&C Future.
• lol trophies lol
• Gran Turismo TV - Racing videos. From PSN. We don't have Gran Turismo 5 for you yet, but we DO have a trip to the Ferrari plant hosted by one of the guys responsible for GT! That's . . sorta the same, right?
• HOME IS SERIOUSLY COMING GUYS OK. REALLY. SERIOUSLY. IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME. WE MEAN IT. PLEASE DON'T LEAVE US.
• Video content: Like XBL, you've got movies, TV, etc. HD, SD, rental options, streaming preview, tons of stuff. Not as amazing as Netflix integration but the content is portable. You can take anything you get from the PSN Video Store and transfer it to a PSP.

PSP

• Ratchet & Clank pack, $199, includes Ratchet & Clank Size Matters, 1Gb Memory Stick, PSN voucher for Echochrome, and comedy-option UMD of National Treasure 2.
• Resistance Retribution - Third-person over-the-shoulder portable Resistance, developed by Bend Studios
• Also coming: Force Unleashed, Madden 09, Loco Roco 2, Super Stardust Portable, Patapon 2, etc.

Non-Game PS3 Stuff

• PS3 Branded Youtube
• "Life With PS3" coming later this month. Some kind of . . news . . thing? I don't know, Tretton didn't really explain it.

SOE! HEY GUYS, REMEMBER SOE?!?!

• DC Universe Online - PC/PS3. BIZARRO AM LOVING THIS INNOVATIVE GAME.

Conference Shockers

• No showing from Square Enix
• Only 15 seconds of Killzone 2

Games You Care About

• Fallout 3 . . . turns out it's Fallout 3. Shocking. I mean, it's good and all, but it isn't really news.
• Gears of War 2. See above.
• Banjo Kazooie 3 & Viva Pinata 2. Rare makes sequels, film at 11. Ok, no, seriously they look pretty good. Winter 2008.
• Guitar Hero 4 - 85 master tracks, lame stuff we already knew about ("make your own tracks!!!"), lame stuff we don't care about ("WHOAAA GUYS! SUPER SPECIAL TREAT FOR 360 GAMERS . . YOU GET 3 REM TRACKS! NOT FREE OR ANYTHING . . JUST LIKE . . AN EXCLUSIVE PACK. TO BUY.") Also the new Metallica album will be available as DLC for GH3 and GH4 whenever it actually gets released.
• Rockband 2 - 84 tracks on the disc (the leaked list was mostly right), all RB1 content is compatible and transferrable, 360 exclusive at launch (which will be worldwide this time for reals). Shooting for 500 tracks available for RB2 by the end of the year.

Dashboard Refresh
Remember a few months ago when there were leaks from inside Rare saying "Uhhhh, guys, Microsoft is making us rip off Nintendo in a Big Way and it makes us feel dirty." Totally true. The new dashboard coming this fall is all social crap all the time. It's got fake-Miis, fake-photo-sharing-app, fake everything. I would not be surprised if they make us pay a quarter for a shirt like they do with gamerpics right now.

Good news: they're expanding their video stuff. Not only will there be new partnerships for normal video content, but the new dashboard will bring Netflix streaming capability to the 360. It'll work just like That Roku Thing, except you already have one.

Games You Don't Care About

• Scene It Sequel, bleh.
• Lame Camera Stuff, bleeh.
• Partnership with the tools responsible for 1 vs 100, Big Brother, Fear Factor, etc to produce "Live" versions of shows like 1 vs 100, ultra bleh.
• Lips. It's a Karaoke game. From iNiS, the guys responsible for Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! and Elite Beat Agents. Unfortunately it isn't innovative. It's just Karaoke.

XBLA Stuff

• Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved: 2: Colon: The Game: The Sequel: JUMP IN. It's Geometry Wars, with 4-player MP, and extra crazy stuff.
• Galaga Sequel from the same team as PacMan CE. May be sacrilege. I am reserving judgement until a demo is out.
• Portal - Still Alive. It's a level pack, and if it isn't being released on Steam I will go on a rampage.

Super Secret Bonus Stuff
Square Enix dropped a bomb: Final Fantasy XIII is no longer PS3 exclusive. Sucks to be you, Sony Defense Force. Also, inexplicably, they are releasing Last Remnant on the 360 and PC. Why? No one knows.

That's all for today, Nintendo and Sony are tomorrow. Get your press conference bingo cards ready.