The shiny, it burns!

First, a tip of the hat to Ars Technica... I wouldn't be linking to you so much if you weren't so damn cool.

It's that time of year again, when all sorts of goodness flows out from and around the E3 Expo. I'm used to seeing multiple things that catch my fancy, but this year outdoes anything in my recent memory.

First, in the answered-prayers department, comes news of a new XBox360. Back in April, after Sony made a business decision I disagreed with strongly, I posted a half-hearted hope that Microsoft would come out with a new hardware revision soon, so I could "switch sides". Only with new hardware, I felt, could the issue of their well-publicized hardware failures be put behind them, and, just maybe, they would include a wireless network interface without charging obscene amounts for an add-on. Well, both those prayers were answered in the new model, along with some aesthetic and engineering changes, such as quieter operation and a smaller power supply... and, since Sony went ahead and announced their own online subscription service similar to Microsoft's, they effectively killed the last thing that could have conceivably held me back. Long story short, when next I stumble across one of these new XBox360s, it will almost certainly be mine.

Second, in the oh-heck-yes department, Apple decided to release a new revision of the Mac Mini. My current model is about two and a half years old now, and was never built for anything more than "light" computing tasks, certainly not games (as my experiments with Steam verified). The new version not only replaces the anemic video hardware that limits my gaming, it also has HDMI output for home-theater use, and a fully-internal power supply, despite being even smaller than its predecessors. Of course, at $700 for the base model, it's not quite the gimme-gimme-gimme that the XBox360 is... but I was already thinking in terms of a new "gaming" computer later in the year, when Civilization V comes out. This just might be a strong contender for getting away from having a separate Windows box, when the time comes.

Third, in the wait-and-see department, Nintendo let the wraps off their 3DS. I know, 3D is all the rage these days, but I still haven't seen a single movie in the theaters, mainly because I have no use for glasses, goggles, or anything else getting between me and what I'm watching (especially since I already wear my own glasses). The trick here is 3D without any such encumbrances... which, depending, could be a very nice trick indeed. Still, I've played with a basic DS, which is really too small for my hands... if the hardware's a workable size for me, and there's enough software that appeals, this could be a Christmas or birthday present to myself, come the time.

All that... and it's only the first day of E3. I wonder what other goodies will come to the fore in the next couple of days?