Wow – I’ve been so busy the last few days I haven’t had time to dive into the gaming goodness of this year’s E3 event. Here are some of the more interesting tidbits:

• Nintendo’s demos of their RevolutionWii platform and the innovative ‘nunchuk’ controller. This doohickey includes a speaker, as well as the ability to sense up/down, left/right and pitch/yaw movements. If developers take real advantage of these features, the gameplay could be revolutionary. Or is that Wiilutionary? Demos include this one of an anime-inspired doubles tennis match, and another with the next installment of the Zelda series. Can you say ‘shield smash?’ One amazing tidbit – say you are using a bow and arrow. The speaker on the controller will emit the sounds of the bow being pulled taught and the sound of the arrow leaving the bow. The speakers at the monitor’s soundstage will in turn emit the sound of that arrow thwacking into your target. An interactive soundstage in three dimensions. Sweeet!

• EA shows an amazing demo of their new facial capture technology – Tiger Woods. This puts their current Xbox360 TW game to shame.
• Fable2, Lionhead Studio’s first effort since their acquisition by Microsoft, was unveiled. The teaser trailer shows some great imagery, and suggests a more modern milieu – 16/17th century firearms seem to play a role here. The tagline sums up the promise of the first game where your actions determined how others reacted to you, and in fact your very appearance – ‘Every Choice Leads to a Different Destiny’
• And that other Microsoft-owned game developer rolled out a teaser video for what’s probably the most anticipated new release (other than an actual platform) for the next 18 months – Halo 3. Gates himself showed up to do the honors.
• Microsoft has released a boatload of HD trailers from E3 on Xbox Live Marketplace
• The Xbox 360 will soon have an HD-DVD peripheral (via USB), a wireless racing wheel with force feedback (PGR3, anybody?), a wireless headset and a webcam. Gates indicated that they plan to tie the Xbox Live experience to traditional PCs and mobile devices, vastly increasing the reach and value of the communications peripherals like some of those announced today. Here’s a quote:

“By opening the Xbox Live entertainment network to the entire universe of Windows and mobile gamers, we’re creating unparalleled gameplay opportunities that will drive incredible growth of the online community,” said Gates. “Our vision is to deliver consistent, compelling experiences that make it easy for consumers to jump in and play, from any device at any time. It’s a vision that only Microsoft can deliver.” – Bill Gates via Lost Remote.

• Turner’s own Gametap announced several big initiatives. First is the coming resurrection of Cyan’s ‘Uru Live’, the MMOG version of Myst – which has hung on as a viable environment thanks mostly to some die-hard fans. Now Turner will make this game available to all Gametap subscribers. Gametap has also passed a new milestone of some 500 titles on the platform. And they have engaged the animation team behind ‘Sam & Max’ to resurrect that series on Gametap. As a special bonus, GametapTV is streaming all sorts of live content from E3 – a nice bonus for us Turner employees. I hope to catch Space Ghost with Peter Molyneux of Fable2 fame on Wednesday afternoon.
• Grand Theft Auto will no longer be available first on the Sony platform. Breaking the string of some four titles, the next installment will be available simultaneously on both PS3 and Xbox360. No other specifics, sadly, on gameplay, location etc.