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We're a few days out from E3, that magical place where dreams are made and fanboys and girls from all walks of life are simultaneously appeased and slightly disappointed. Surprises are expected from all of the big three this year -- particularly Nintendo. How will the gaming giant top last year's 3DS debut? All signs point to the announcement of a Wii followup, which we've heard alternately referred to as the "Wii HD" and "Project Cafe." Rumors, leaks, and the occasional bit of confirmed information have been rampant in the months and weeks leading up to the event. We've weaved it all together into one handy guidebook, to make sure that we're all on the same page, come Tuesday morning. Let's start with a genuine bit of information: back in April, the company's CEO, Satoru Iwata, confirmed that Nintendo is, in fact, working on an HD followup to the Wii that is most likely due out in 2012. A few days prior to that revelation, the requisi...

If you're like us, you've been spending most of your time in the lead up to E3 scouring the source code of gaming company sites searching for clues about next week's announcements. We happened to miss Sony's "Vita" namedrop in the code of a post about the "future of handhelds," but one reader managed to catch it before the company removed it completely. The inclusion of the name is the latest in a series of slip ups that lend credence to the notion that the decidedly generic Next Generation Portable title isn't the official name for the company's less investment heavy handheld. There's certainly the possibility that Sony was using the name PS Vita while developing the device internally, though mentions seem to be popping up more and more as we push closer to the big event. Either way, we're certain to get a big dose of vitamin Sony in a matter of days. Engadget Spanish ,  Joystiq Sony

There was a bit of confusion over what sort of backwards compatibility the Sony NGP would have when it was announced earlier this year, but it looks like that particular mystery's now been cleared up. Eurogamer  reports that the NGP (or whatever it's eventually called) will be indeed compatible with existing PSP games -- of the downloadable variety only, of course. What's more, the site says that it has actually seen  Resistance: Retribution  demonstrated on the handheld, and that all PSP games are run via a software emulator that will let you turn upscaling on or off to suit your preference -- games will also be able to take advantage of the NGP's dual analog sticks (to control your character's view in  Resistance , for instance). As  Eurogamer  notes, that sounds similar to Sony's remastering effort for PSP titles on the PS3, which also promises to add cross-device playability. Might the NGP also get in o...

For a product with the word "vitality" in its name, Nintendo's forthcoming Wii peripheral doesn't seem to have much of a pulse these days. The oddball controller certainly piqued our interest when the gaming giant showed it off way back in 2009, but aside from some false alarms and an uncovered patent application, we haven't heard a peep. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata addressed the Vitality Sensor's conspicuous absence during a financial presentation, chalking the delay up to "differences in biological information in humans." The peripheral is still coming, according to Iwata, but it won't be released until the company can make it work well with 99 percent of consumers -- a tall order indeed. And what about the other one percent? Well, perhaps they can try these on for size. Joystiq Nintendo