E3 2011

Alright guys, lets go ahead and talk about some of the stuff that is coming with E3. Some of the biggest, being the Wii U, PS Vita, and Halo 4.

Now lets go ahead and take a look at the Wii U. There is a lot of confusing with this bad boy. And some are saying that possibly, PS3 + PS Vita - Wii U. Since they can pretty much do the same thing. Confused a little bit? Lets go into more detail.

The Wii U is an entirely new console that is backwards compatible with the Wii. A Wii U game can only be played on a Wii U system, NOT a Wii. The Wii U console will do all the rendering for the controllers and beam the video feed out to each individual controller. That takes an awful lot of bandwidth, way more than bluetooth can handle (note that the Wii U controller is reported to have two different wireless transmitters, bluetooth for the standard controller functions and a much higher bandwidth transmitter for the video and audio). For this to work with the PS3 and Vita it would have to work over the much lower bandwidth Wi-Fi connection and rendered separately by every single connected device, the PS3 console and each connected Vita. Sorry, but I can only imagine the amount of lag this would introduce. Sure, the Vita could possibly do the whole "playing a PS3 game on a handheld," but that is only a very, VERY small part of what the Wii U controller was described to be able to do. That is kinda the dilemma here. Will the PS3 + Vita have lag? Or can it hold up it's own against the Wii U? PS3 + Vita is pretty much the same thing as the Wii U. But which can do it better?

The price of a PS3 and PS Vita combined would presumably be more expensive than a Wii U and its controller, but if you are already one of the 50 million PS3 owners worldwide then $249 for the Wi-Fi PS Vita could be more appealing than shelling out for the Wii U – with the added bonus of gaining a genuine portable entertainment device that you can throw in your bag and play with away from home.

Sony certainly has experience with a setup similar to Nintendo's Wii U with its Remote Play service for PS3, which allows PSP owners to browse and stream content from their PlayStation 3 console. And though largely unheralded, Lair – one of the very earliest titles for the PS3 – allowed the player to stream the game to their PSP screen with no lag. The downside was the sacrifice of control – the PSP only has one thumbstick when the game needed two to perform adequately. But such issues won't arise with the PS Vita, given it practically has every control interface type known to man – from twin sticks to touch screens.

Of course, there are plenty of other factors to consider. No specifications for the Wii U console itself have been revealed, and the final console could well be uber powerful, play Blu-rays, vacuum your carpet – who knows? But the point is: do you want to make space for a new (admittedly tiny) box under your TV, or do you want to make room in your bag for a new handheld?

So like I've been saying, there is a lot of debate going on with this. And we'll have more details on that later.

We'll chat more later

-j-