Peter Skerritt's blog

If you're a console gaming fan, like I am, you probably remember where you were when the name and specifics of Nintendo's Wii follow-up were announced. I was in a Starbucks on the morning of June 7th, a few hundred feet from the Nokia Theater where Nintendo was holding its press conference. I also remember exclaiming out loud something to the effect of, "That's really what they're calling it? Wii U? No. NO!"

Dark Souls was my next destination, and I can already tell fans of Demon's Souls that this game is going to be as good as advertised. From Software has ratcheted up the difficulty; in fact, the person who demonstrated the game for me was having a difficult time staying alive himself.

The KmartGamer E3 team visit to the THQ booth had a common theme: violence. Gunplay and fisticuffs ruled the experience, and we saw some titles that will make a definite impact at retail over the coming months.

The middle day of festivities at the Electronics Entertainment Expo here in Los Angeles was an exceptionally busy one. This entry is part one of two, as there were eight hours' worth of meetings and booth tours that took place.

After weeks of waiting—the E3 experience finally got underway on Tuesday. It was an early start (5am, to be exact), but after a breakfast with some awesome people– including a conversation with James Stella, Sears Holdings' Divisional Merchandise Manager for Movies, Music, & Video Games—it was off to the L.A. Convention Center to pick up our E3 badge holders and shoot some video.

Looking at the calendar, we're less than two weeks away from what will be one of the most important E3 events in recent memory when it comes to what I call the Hardware Trinity—that is Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Each of the three companies have issues to address. Nintendo is facing lackluster 3DS hardware sales and the lame-duck status of the Wii until its new platform is launched. Sony has to deal with the aftereffects of one of the largest online security breaches in history and major losses in the last year. Microsoft may seem bulletproof, but the stagnant nature of the Kinect sensor and a slow trickle of software for it call into question the viability of the technology.

Time has been gradually marching along since the news broke that I would be attending this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo—or E3, as most of us know it—and I thought that it's time to start talking about some things that I'm expecting to see happen during what will be one of the most important shows in recent memory. Some of these are already confirmed, and some may be a bit more unexpected. We'll certainly see how my predictions stack up versus reality when the show actually gets going in early June.

As of the time of this writing (May 12th), the PlayStation Network enters its third consecutive week of downtime, there are some signs damaged relations between Sony and PlayStation 3 software publishers and developers… as well as with consumers. It's a battle that is being fought on multiple fronts, and the casualties mount with each passing day.

Recent economic trends—notably rapid increases in fuel prices and associated price hikes in the general cost of living—should be something that the console video game industry starts taking seriously. Everything is getting more expensive at a most inopportune time for the domestic economy, and with the decline of disposable income, it's only a matter of time before pain is once again felt by the console gaming industry.

Why is the industry so quick to dismiss the single-player experience? What happens when an online service goes down, which happened to Xbox Live a few years ago and is currently affecting PSN? What happens when your internet service provider has connectivity issues or goes down completely? If today's games are more about connectivity and playing with others, wouldn't the $60 spent on each game be a waste at that point?