After giving my impressions of Sony's and Microsoft's respective efforts at e3, it's time to turn to Nintendo. Since tomorrow is Nintendo's stated day to focus on 3DS stuff, today it was pretty much all Wii U. I think there was a lot there to keep the Nintendo faithful happy, but I think overall there's still some work to be done for those who felt burned by the Wii or who didn't respond to the 3DS. Regardless, here is my impression of what I thought the highlights were:

After giving my impressions of Microsoft's surprisingly effective conference yesterday - that is, considering the fact that they'll be competing against a major new hardware unveiling from Nintendo - I wanted to follow up with similar impressions of Sony's major announcements related to the PlayStation 3 and Vita. Nintendo impressions will follow after their big announcements later today. Unfortunately, Sony didn't particularly impress, with a similar mix of the usual types of new game announcements as Microsoft, just without much else of interest to augment it. Naturally, if any of these companies make any big announcements following their main events, I'll put up another post. With that said, here are the few Sony announcements from late yesterday I found of interest:

So, as the first day winds down, I thought I would toss out a few impressions of what I thought were the most significant announcements from the early part of the first day, which focused on Microsoft and the Xbox 360. Next, we should expect to see Sony's stuff and then Nintendo's major Wii U announcements, both of which I'll also discuss.

Two new articles (of five total to date) have been released that add new companion information to our latest book, My Xbox: Xbox 360, Kinect, and Xbox LIVE. Check out: Discovering XFINITY TV for Xbox 360 and Using MLB.TV on Xbox 360. The former covers using your console to replace a cable box and how to easily control movies and TV shows with your controller or Kinect, while the latter covers the ins and outs of the MLB.TV app. A third new article (sixth total in the series), authored by Christina, will be released shortly. Give them a read, and, as always, let us know what you think!

My PlayStation VitaBill and I are happy to announce that we're hard at work on our next book, My PlayStation Vita, which will follow a format similar to our previous book, My Xbox. My PlayStation Vita is due out in the latter part of 2012 and will cover usage of all the major features of Sony's powerful handheld. There are other exciting projects we'll be working on both individually and together in 2012 and beyond, including another videogame-related book and two special projects in the medical field. As always, we'll keep you informed of the latest happenings. For now, check out the marketing blurb for My PlayStation Vita, and thank you for the continued support:

Adventure Games BundleHead over right now to grab your Bundle in a Box! Pay what you want, no DRM, and support charity to boot. There's some great games in this package (see below). If you're a fan of old school adventures, it's worth getting for Gemini Rue alone. You also get codes for STEAM and something called Desaru (?). At any rate, at $5 this is a complete no-brainer, so go grab it now!

From our good friend Gnome of Gnome's Lair:

Que has released the second chapter from our latest book, My Xbox: Xbox 360, Kinect, and Xbox LIVE, as a feature article on their Website. You can go direct to the Que Website to read, Networking Your Xbox, right now. Let us know what you think and be sure to check out the book. As a side note, we've written three new original Xbox 360 articles for Que that should be released in the coming weeks, and are also well underway with our next Que book, details of which we hope to reveal soon. As always, we'll keep you posted.

Amiga Forever DesktopCloanto has released the latest "R2" enhanced versions of their popular and easy-to-use Amiga Forever and C64 Forever 2012 emulators. This is great news for old and new fans of the greatest Commodore platforms, including all versions of the Amiga series (inclusive of the CDTV and CD32), and most of the 8-bit line, including PET, VIC 20, C-64/128, and C-16/Plus4. Around here, it's among our absolute favorite emulation packages and used as pack-ins with various devices, including the MCC, so you know it has to be great.

The full press release details are below, along with all the links to the various packages available:

As an admitted techno-luster, I've been following the trend of 3D printing with intense interest, particularly as prices continue to drop from previously stratospheric levels. Gizmag reports that Solidoodle 2 has broken the $500 barrier--which puts it right in line with that sweet spot for home/hobbyist use. With that said, the output does look far rougher (particularly texture-wise) than I've seen from the more expensive units (which are double or more in price, though), but I'm sure that will improve over time.