E3 is never without its fair share of news, but as tends to be the case, some of the most interesting and surprising information was revealed during the Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony press conferences. The news was in some cases shocking, and in others downright dirty, but all of it gave us a clearer picture of what the next year in video games is going to look like.

Nintendo

Solid Snake in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Though Nintendo failed to announce the status of its signature fighting series during its press conference, and the game was conspicuously absent from the show floor, all secrets were revealed during a special event at the end of the first day of E3, in which attendees learned that Solid Snake would be a playable character. That's a far cry from looking down the barrel of his gun.

Resident Evil for Wii
Resident Evil 5 may only be in development for the PS3 and Xbox 360, but Wii owners need not fear (or more likely, should start being afraid), because Capcom announced a Resident Evil game of some sort is in development for the Wii. We hope it won't be like the Resident Evil light-gun games.

27 Wii games playable at E3
Reggie Fils-Aime's mantra at the Nintendo press conference was that people should concern themselves more with how games play than how they look. He and his company kept their end of the bargain by having 27 games playable on the E3 show floor.

Sony

Sony E3 Briefing

There's a lot of big news happening, if you can stay alert through it all.

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PS3 price, date
At the pre-E3 Sony press conference, among a number of interesting announcements, the corporation finally slapped a price tag and a due date on its upcoming console, leaving people more stunned than surprised.

PS3 controller motion sensitive
Sony seemed to take Nintendo's console name change to heart by "borrowing" the company's formerly "revolutionary" design. They show off their unique controller mechanics, defined as having "six degrees of freedom" with a pretty interesting looking Warhawk demonstration.

PS3 specs tweaked, 20GB version stripped down
With what seems to be the final hardware in tow, Sony outlines all of the specs for its system, taking out a number of features in the 60GB version that were shown at E3 last year, and even more for their smaller package, the 20GB version.

Microsoft

M'soft nabs GTA first day
Microsoft frontman Peter Moore's favorite way to make big announcements is to showcase game titles and release dates with fake tattoos on his arms. So it was clear that Microsoft is more than a little excited to have Grand Theft Auto IV on its console the first day that the game is available. And you can see that in ink. The kind that washes off, of course.

Halo 3 announcement
We all knew it was coming, a barely minute-long trailer showing little more than the Master Chief back in action. But it was enough, and Microsoft knew it.

Everyone Else

Activision buys RedOctane
Following the success of critic's darling Guitar Hero, Activision made a serious investment in parent company RedOctane, just in time for Guitar Hero II and some other exciting possibilities. Cross your fingers for "Panama."

WOW movie
Just when you thought World of Warcraft couldn't get any bigger, it looks like they're trying to translate the addictive Azeroth to the silver screen. How on earth will that work? We don't know, but if precedent means anything, we know people will wait in queue for hours to go see it.