Game iPad

Nick Gillett on the sequels revealed Vita PlayStation and Wii at E3 U

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, recently held in Los Angeles, is the videogame world's biggest annual event, acting as a kind of hype lightning conductor for the next couple of years' blockbuster games and new hardware. Below is a glimpse of what we'll be playing in the near future.

The Games

As always, this year 's E3 has a flourishing trade with sequels. The Elder Scrolls V: The Old Republic promises to be a role-playing experience even more great than its immediate predecessor, but lost with more concentration and less inclination, in the menus; Dust 514 takes console players in massively multiplayer online casting space opera EVE, as they locked planet mercenaries for hire; adventurous 3 Uncharted: Drake 's Deception looks beautiful, as is fitting for a franchise that 's quick to PS3' s flagship; Halo 4 is on the way, not that anyone doubted that for a second; Minecraft , The boundlessly popular modification-friendly indie sandbox game is coming to Xbox; BioShock Infinite 'S move from the sea floor on cloud city seems appropriate dizzy while Battlefield 3 see how you could '\ d imagine real war. And finally, a killer app for 3D-TV: Resistance 3 Will be able to show a separate image in full screen mode to different players on the same TV.

Microsoft

E3 is huge, but within that the announcements made by the three big hardware manufacturers are its highlights. This year Microsoft had only one thing on its mind: Kinect . Controller-free game is now all out attack Mass Effect 3 - Awkward call voice commands to cohorts in battle, and choose conversation responses - for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Where you gestures Minority Report-looking weapons to upgrade to the Romans in head butting Ryse . Kinect is fascinating technology, but so far, apart from the psychedelic Child Of Eden, said hasn 't an awful lot of fun.

Sony

Although missing Microsoft 's pathological obsession with motion control, Sony still seemed determined to take Move shoehorn, its high precision to the Wii-Mote paradigm, in pretty much everything. But there was also spare PlayStation Portable Vita (Later this year), adds the large touchscreen, two serviceable analog joysticks, cameras, and a rear touch-panel, the latter being simply the most fascinating facet of what is ultimately a threat to Nintendo 's handheld gaming supremacy . Games for the system were of the lush-looking title and an equally wonderful LittleBigPlanet , both seemingly delivered without compromise on a portable.

Nintendo

Its share price may have tanked for days afterwards, but Nintendo probably "won" this year's press conference face-off. Announcing Wii U (out 2012) , a console that looks very much like a Wii, but with HD graphics and using controllers that are as much like an iPad as they are conventional joypads. With a 6.2in touchscreen, two analogue sticks and the usual tilt and accelerometer controls, Wii U also lets you use all the various remotes, guns, SNES-style pads and games that worked with Wii and which may already be cluttering up your living room. The announcement of the Nintendo eShop for 3DS was soon followed by its launch and it's a great deal more solid and reliable than its creaky DSi forebear was. 3D Pokedex and Excite Bike 3D are available as free downloads.