Hasta La Gadget!

Now that we know mostly everything about the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, it’s about time for peripheral makers to start showcasing their planned gear for these next-gen consoles. As such, Nyko’s taken to this year’s E3 to announce a few products meant to be used alongside Microsoft and Sony’s recently announced entertainment boxes — there’s a Smart Clip, a Charge Base and a Headset Adaptor (Xbox One-only). Meanwhile, Nyko also took the time to unveil a little something for the NVIDIA Shield, including a dock that doubles as a charging station, a couple of sleek traveling cases and a kit which provides power to the unorthodox handheld while on the go or at home. Nyko didn’t dive into much of the availability (or pricing) specifics, but the trend seems to be that the add-ons will be available later this year.

Follow all of our E3 2013 coverage at our event hub.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

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Source: Nyko

This morning, we got our first official hands-on with Sony’s brand-new PlayStation 4 — unveiled last night at E3 2013. Though we got to put our hands on the new DualShock 4 last evening, today we were finally able to play some next-gen games. The first game we played was a new racing game, known as DriveClub, and it uses the PS4 Eye and DualShock 4.

Right when we started, the game took a picture of us using the Eye and it… well it came out kinda blue. The room we’re in was very blue, and the image reflected that — it wasn’t the highest quality, and it’s a bit of a gimmick, but neat nonetheless. More importantly, when we actually played the game, the DualShock 4 felt great. It’s light, responsive, and comfortable — the new thumbsticks with convex tops cradle your thumbs, and the triggers easily hold your pointer fingers. As for the face buttons, things are nigh identical with previous DualShock iterations. The standard ex / triangle / circle / square combo remains, and looks just about the same as on the DualShock 3. Though the touchpad didn’t have any in-game effect in DriveClub, the pad is easily clickable and not too far from your thumbs to quickly jump from face buttons to it.

Filed under: Gaming, Sony

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Instead of its typical pre-show E3 press conference, Nintendo opted to open up its exhibition booth to journalists a bit early this year, teasing a few Wii U games, such as Pikmin 3 and the long-awaited Super Mario 3D World. Much to the amusement of attendees, Koichi Hayashida, the director of that latter title, joined journalists “dressed as a cat,” as you can see in the image above. There were meows and everything. Such is our reward for an unusually long wait for the abbreviated event to kick off.

Filed under: Gaming, Nintendo

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In case you hadn’t noticed, “next-gen” is sort of the theme of E3 2013, and the term applies to far more than just video game consoles. Take headphones, for instance — Able Planet tells us that it’s developed what it believes to be the next generation in personal audio: a haptic headset outfitted with ViViTouch technology. Put simply, these things subtly vibrate with an audio source, but in a non-distracting way. The company first showed us this device back at CES 2013, but that prototype was unnamed, rough around the edges and had limited control options. Today, AblePlanet introduced us to the final prototype for what it now calls its Linx Fusion headset. We gave the cans a listen to see what had changed.

Filed under: Portable Audio/Video

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Looking for a new Zelda game for your Wii U? Nintendo hasn’t quite spilled the beans on that one, but it has given us some additional details about the system’s upcoming Gamecube remake: The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker HD will hit stores this October. Naturally, Nintendo boasted that the game would be rendered in 1080p, justifying the “HD” part of the game’s title, but the company saw fit to patch some of the original game’s non-visual shortcomings, too — lightly teasing itself for the Gamecube release’s long and dull sailing segments. The fix, apparently, was numbingly simple: hold the A button to sail faster.

Satoru Iwata also explained that they also had to tweak a few mechanics to get it ready for the Wii U, namely replacing the GBA-link Tingle Tuner mode for the original game with a “Tingle Bottle,” which allows users to send messages in a bottle via Miiverse. Unfortunately, that’s all Nintendo had to say about the Zelda franchise. Is a Wind Waker remake enough to tide fans over until the Wii U gets an original Zelda game? Let us know what you think — we do have a comments section, after all.

Follow all of our E3 2013 coverage at our event hub.

Filed under: Gaming, Nintendo

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