After sleeping peacefully for the first time in 5 years with Alan Wake finally getting a release date, it was time to prepare for an afternoon of information coming from an early Los Angeles morning of press conferences at E3. Nintendo and Sony both scheduled their major press events for the official first day of E3, and the world was ready for a storm of news to rush in from both of them. Nintendo was the lame duck presentation last year, with the audience clamouring for more tried and true franchises to be brought to the forefront, and less of the Blue Ocean that they have filled with Wii Fit and My French Coach. Sony had to respond to their major competitor, Microsoft, and given the fact that they had all but admitted to most of the rumours and leaks that trickled out before E3, it didn’t seem they had much more to surprise the world with.

Nintendo was first at bat early Tuesday morning and started off slow with some general “look how great we are doing” statistics. Of course, they have every right to do that when they are the iron fist that rules over the gaming world. After the obligatory numbers, a montage of Mario greeted onlookers followed by an announcement for the first of four new games starring the Italian plumber, New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii. Like the DS title, it is a side-scrolling game hearkening back to the days of yore, but with the twist that you and three friends can play the game at one time. It comes out this holiday, and is a great title to bring to the console, so they certainly started strong. Nintendo followed up with some games that we’ve seen already, such as Wii Fit Plus which boasts a more customizable workout regime, and Wii Sports Resort with Wii Motion Plus. The showed a significantly improved version of the latter, with more games a lot more detail on the level of accuracy that is associated with Motion Plus, including some archery games and a synchronized skydiving demonstration that also showed off some graphical shine that made the title stand out much more than its predecessor.

Square Enix announced two games with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles – The Crystal Bearers for the Wii, which we’ve already seen, and a new title in Kingdom Hearts for the DS. Nintendo also dished out a new addition to the Mario RPG series for the DS with Mario & Luigi – Bowser’s Inside Story, taking Mario into the belly of the beast to do battle. The big Mario news was Mario Galaxy 2, the first time a Mario game has gotten a sequel on the same system, and it looks like a lot of the same and more. Nintendo also broke out big news regarding a partnership with Team Ninja, creators of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, bringing a new Metroid game to the Wii in Metroid: Other M. A mixture of 3D platforming and action elements, it was the answer to the “hardcore” questions that have been bombarding the company since the Wii arrived.

For the portable market, it seems that Nintendo didn’t want to skimp on some reasonably popular titles there, with a sequel to Golden Sun and Mario vs. Donkey Kong coming to the system, the latter being a DSi only download title. Facebook integration came to pass using the DSi to post pictures to your Wall, something that truly shows how sad our lives have become. The enhancements for Nintendo didn’t stop there; Satori Iwata, President of Nintendo, came out to show off the Wii Vitality Sensor, an attachment that allows players to see read their pulse through the Wii. It was a strange announcement, and just how it will be used has yet to be determined, but it seems to fall in line with all the fitness attachments Nintendo has been pushing with its DS fitness games.

With Nintendo done, journalists raced to the Sony press conference to await some high profile releases that would surely be coming. Sony did not disappoint when it came to big names, big sequels and lots of high definition video, as they dolled out a huge list of titles that would be coming to the PS3 this year such as Assassin’s Creed 2, Brütal Legend, Final Fantasy XIII and Bioshock 2. In exclusives, Sony certainly broke out the big guns for the PS3 showing off God of War III, Uncharted 2, Ratchet & Clank Future: Crack In Time and my most anticipated game – from the makers of Shadow of the Colossus – The Last Guardian. The list went on and on, and while there were no real huge announcements geared towards a change in the PS3 platform, the list of promising first party exclusives on the way this year and next are a good enough reason to be excited as a PS3 owner and enough to turn heads for people looking to buy.

Some of the big announcements for their home console was a motion controller system that uses batons to track your movement. It is unique in a way that seems only Sony could pull off, but seemed to work rather fluidly, with players able to hold a single wand like a weapon, or dual wield as a shield and sword combo. The tech demos had a lot of promise and showed a smooth set of interesting ideas, so it is another experiment to keep an eye on. Also coming to the PS3 is a Final Fantasy…XIV, an online only PS3 exclusive that is a sequel to the eleventh chapter in the series, the MMO. It was a big surprise, and even bigger still is that both XIII and XIV would be coming next year.

The PSP was a big focus for Sony, and another big surprise that wasn’t a surprise at all was the announcement of the PSP go, a disc-less iteration of the PSP that has a slide out control pad and 16 GB of internal memory. It is an online machine meant to interact with the PSN more than retail stores, bringing the idea of a digital future even closer to the forefront. Along with that came a slew of announcements of upcoming titles, like the long-awaited Gran Turismo, LittleBigPlanet, SOCOM and a load of already announced titles that pad a pretty decent looking lineup for the handheld this coming Fall. While it may not have had the same impact as some may have hoped based on the fact that so many leaks draw out a large majority of their big announcements before the show, it gave a great indication of Sony’s focus on games for the coming year.

Day 1 felt more information heavy than I expected it to be. While yesterday had three big press conferences a lots of announcements, the fact the two of the three first parties had their show and their big chance to return to form at E3 meant that pulled out a lot of info. Nintendo had basically kept it all fairly close to their chest so barely anything squeaked out, but even with the leaks Sony still has an impressive lineup and has demonstrated some fierce competition for software sales and maybe a good boost in hardware to follow along. Exciting times, my friends.