My time with the Wii U included five “experiences” — that is, short tech demos that won’t necessarily become actual games — all of which showcased the Wii U’s controller, with its 6.2-inch touch screen. You can see each one on Nintendo’s website.

Picking up a Wii U controller was a lot like handling a Wii remote for the first time — a bit of bewilderment and a bit of excitement, followed by a quick dose of simple entertainment. I was playing a virtual game of tag with three pals from PCWorld, them using Wii remotes to chase my avatar, me using the Wii U controller to escape. The trick was that only I could see where everyone was positioned, thanks to a map on my controller’s screen. We yelled. We laughed. We cheered. It was Wii Sports Tennis all over again — a cheap thrill without much substance.

But the Wii U also has a practical side. In two demos — a widescreen rendition of New Super Mario Bros. and a non-playable Zelda boss battle — the controller’s small screen could mirror was happening on the television. If you’ve ever had a household argument over who gets to use the TV for what, this alone makes the Wii U an interesting proposition.

Thing is, both sides of the Wii U coin require compromise. The controller will seem straightforward to anyone who’s played video games before, but it introduces a layer of complexity not found in the dead-simple Wii remote. For core gamers, the Wii U has a bit of an ergonomics problem. The controller is surprisingly light, and it rests comfortably in the hand thanks to a little lip on its back side, but it doesn’t feel as good for traditional console gaming as an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 controller. The analog thumbsticks are also more like the Nintendo 3DS’s analog nub than the full-sized sticks on competing game consoles.

Still, to look at only the gimmicky and practical sides of the Wii U is to miss the bigger picture. This is a home game console whose content exists beyond the television screen. That by itself a fascinating concept with lots of possibilities. I got a glimpse of this when playing Shield Pose, a rhythm-based game that makes you point the Wii U’s screen away from the television to fend off attacks from pirates. Of all the demos, Shield Pose was the only one to realize the vision in Nintendo’s Wii U concept video, extending the game to a 3D space around the TV set.

In the Wii, there exists potential for greatness, but it’s up to Nintendo and third-party publishers to turn the Wii U into something more than just a high-definition Wii with an extra screen for inventory or other mundane information. We’ll find out next year whether they can pull it off.

Arcade cabinets lined the back wall of the booth, flanking row after row of classic game consoles. Literally everything was there, from the Magnavox Odyssey to the TurboGrafx-16 to the Nintendo 64, many of them playable. An old TV cabinet played Space Invaders, right behind a glass display case with some of the rarest video game hardware in the world.

And at the center of it all was Joe Santulli, dressed in a crisp white suit and turquoise shirt, as if he’d stepped out of the 80s. After a three-year absence, Santulli and his fellow collectors have brought the Classic Gaming Expo back to E3, this time with a new purpose: They want to build a museum for video game history.

The Videogame History Museum would be a permanent extension to the Classic Gaming Expo, which in addition to its E3 appearances is held every summer in Las Vegas. The expo is now 12 years old, and yearly networking has allowed Santulli and his peers to collect more than 20,000 items related to gaming’s past, some of them extremely rare. The Atari Cosmos, for instance, is one of only five in existence.

“Over the years, we’ve amassed so much stuff that we started to think, rather than have this once a year, why not have a place that’s a destination?” Santulli said. The group has started a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and hopes to raise enough money to open a facility somewhere in the San Jose area.

So far, it’s been a challenge. “The economy’s bad,” Santulli said. “People don’t want to invest, but I do believe we have something that’s going to work.”

For now, enjoy some photos of the exhibit at E3, an enclave among the flashing lights and booming sounds of the show floor:

Finally, third-party peripheral maker Nyko is trying to solve that problem with Zoom for Kinect, a $30 clip-on accessory that’s supposed to decrease the amount of open space required. Whereas Kinect’s ideal range is 8 feet to 10 feet, Zoom for Kinect reduces the ideal range to between 6 feet and 8 feet.

When trying out the Zoom for Kinect at Nyko’s E3 booth, I didn’t notice any issues with sensitivity. Actually, I was able to get within one arm’s length of the Kinect and still have my movements detected, although players have to stand farther back when more than one person is involved. The Xbox 360 only warned me to back off when I got within a foot of the device.

Zoom for Kinect is nothing more than a set of wide-angle lenses that sit in front of the Kinect camera. The attachment slides over the Kinect unit and locks into place when the lenses match up. The idea is so simple that I’m surprised Microsoft isn’t selling its own version, but I’m glad someone has given consideration to folks who don’t live in luxurious open spaces (read: college students, New York residents).

The Zoom for Kinect peripheral goes on sale August 16.

Sony’s throwing everything it can into the Playstation Vita, which launches this holiday season starting at $250. It even has front- and rear-facing cameras and, for $50 extra, 3G connectivity. All of this leads me to one conclusion: If the PSVita can’t compete as a gaming device with smartphones, then all gaming handhelds face a perilous future.

My impressions of the Playstation Vita are mostly positive. It doesn’t look much different than a PSP, except that it’s bigger. But despite its size — you won’t be fitting this thing in your pants pocket — the PSVita feels surprisingly light.

It’s the first handheld device I’ve seen with two analog thumb sticks, and while they’re much smaller than those of a Playstation 3 controller, they’re perfectly adequate for running, strafing, aiming and shooting. I learned this by playing Uncharted: Golden Abyss, an upcoming portable edition of Sony’s popular adventure series. The game includes an auto-aim feature, so when you pull the left trigger, your target reticle snaps to a nearby enemy, but the controls are accurate enough that shooter veterans could easily aim on their own.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss also shows off a couple other PSVita features. To climb across ledges, players can use the traditional thumb stick and buttons, or they can simply swipe across ledges in one stroke, and protagonist Nathan Drake will climb automatically. This saves a lot of time, and reduces some of the guesswork that goes into climbing on Uncharted’s Playstation 3 versions. I also made use of the PSVita’s gyroscope and accelerometer to aim a sniper rifle, literally pointing and shooting at my targets.

To try the Vita’s rear touch panel, I switched over to ModNation Racers, a kart racing game with a track builder. To create mountains on my custom track, I dragged a finger over the rear panel. Tapping the touch screen pounded the land into valleys. The creation tool itself ran rather sluggishly, but I was told that this will improve before the game launches.

One other notable demo was Ruin, a game that lets users save their progress online and continue playing from either a PSVita or a Playstation 3. The cloud save system worked flawlessly, so I hope Ruin — a typical action RPG — isn’t the only example of cross-platform gaming that we’ll see.

I’ve talked to a bunch of other journalists, and nearly everyone seems impressed with the Playstation Vita. What’s less clear, however, is whether everyone’s planning to buy one. For as great as the PSVita looked,  it still has to compete with smartphones, which are always in your pocket and offer loads of cheap software on demand. So far, Sony’s hitting all the right notes with a device that does everything, but only time will tell whether that’s enough.

You see, I was playing Silent Hill’s Playstation 3 version, with a pair of stereoscopic 3D glasses affixed to my head. The guy next to me was playing the Xbox 360 version in 2D. The difference in smoothness and visual fidelity was all too obvious.

This wasn’t the only example. Earlier in the day, I had a meeting with Sega to check out Sonic Generations, another game that will support 3D on the Playstation 3. As the demo began, my heart sank. Although the visuals looked fine, the reduced framerate of 3D nearly ruined the experience. Later, I found a kiosk at Sega’s booth with the 2D version on display, and again, I was much happier. The game’s producer, Takashi Iizuka, confirmed that framerates are lower in the 3D version.

It’s no secret that 3D causes a drop in performance, because each eye requires a separate image. This is especially the case in video games, which require lots of intensive graphics processing. But I never noticed the issue on Sony’s own 3D games. When I played Killzone 3 in 3D at CES last January, the game looked great, even if the 3D effect itself was somewhat distracting.

But as more publishers slap 3D onto their blockbuster games, we’re going to start seeing some unfavorable implementations, and I’ve encountered my first examples at E3 2011. I won’t judge the final products of Konami and Sega by what’s on display here, but I’m certainly not sold.

Unlike most multiplayer shooters, whose individual matches live in a vacuum and don’t support any overarching goals, Dust 514 is tied directly to the massive multiplayer game EVE Online. By fighting on the ground, players try to capture planets on behalf of EVE’s major corporations. In other words, players’ actions in Dust 514 can have a ripple effect throughout the EVE universe.

That may not mean a whole lot if you don’t know anything about EVE Online, but understand that EVE is serious business for the 400,000 people who play it. Coalitions have formed and crumbled over the game’s 8-year history, and player alliances have rich histories that read like something out of a text book.

Not surprisingly, EVE players have already taken an interest in Dust 514. Some have set up websites to recruit strong players, offering to bankroll them with in-game credits. For less coveted players, Dust 514 won’t require a subscription, but will require an up-front purchase of in-game currency. After that, players can play for free, buy more currency or hope to attract the attention of EVE players and get funded.

It’s not clear exactly how the battles in Dust 514 will play out, but Thomas Farrer, the game’s producer, said during a press briefing that it can take hours to capture a piece of planetary infrastructure, of which there are several on each planet. Players will also be able to fight against computer opponents fight in missions generated by computer-controlled corporations (Correction: at this point, CCP is saying that all opponents will be human), but the risks and rewards will be lower. The game will go into private trials at the end of this year and launch next spring.

The thing about ambition is that it doesn’t always work out. CCP has never published a first-person shooter, and if the game isn’t fun, it’s not going to draw many more people into the EVE universe. But I can’t fault CCP for trying. “What we wanted to create with this is an experience that’s about more than shooting people in the face,” Farrer said.

Amen to that.

An OnLive app is already available on the iPad, but only for watching other players and seeing what games are available. The unreleased app shown at E3 can run OnLive’s full library of games using the universal controller announced last week, and one game was even adapted to the touch screen. According to Joe Bentley, OnLive’s vice president of engineering, Apple is listening.

“We’ve had conversations with Apple, and they’re very excited about OnLive,” Bentley said. “They’re huge fans.”

OnLive uses high-end processors on its own servers to stream modern video games to less capable devices. The service launched a year ago on PCs, and is now available on a small set-top box that sells for $100. In addition, OnLive has a partnership with Vizio to appear on its connected televisions, and will be compatible with other TVs and Blu-ray players that use Intel’s C4100 embedded processor (although it’s still up to TV makers to include the OnLive app).

Tablets are perhaps the most importance piece of OnLive’s device puzzle. You can already play Borderlands on TVs and computers using traditional game consoles and high-end PC rigs. But tablets just aren’t powerful enough, so they’re the one class of device where OnLive can stand alone.

For the iPad, the question is whether OnLive can keep its business model intact while satisfying Apple’s demands. Apple requires a 30 percent cut of all in-app purchases and subscription revenue through its App Store. OnLive charges $10 per month for its all-you-can-stream PlayPack service, and prides its a la carte service on the fact that there’s no retail middleman. Something’s got to give if OnLive wants to get on the iPad.

Bentley wouldn’t talk about the business details of dealing with Apple, but he cautioned that the version of OnLive demonstrated on tablets at E3 were just tech demos. On the iPad, the finished product may be different when (or if) it actually launches in the App Store.

We’re still a long way from the Wii U’s 2012 release, and Nintendo left a lot of questions unanswered, even as it injected a much-needed dose of buzz into the E3 atmosphere. So I’m going to take a page from Harry and tackle the Wii U announcement as a series of open questions.

How much of that sizzle reel is real?

We’ve seen concept video trickery at E3 before. At E3 2009, Microsoft showed its vision for Kinect that included real-life karate sessions with a teacher that recognized the player, a skateboard scanned into the game and Milo, a boy that seemed to interact naturally with the player. None of those experiences are actually available on Kinect today.

In Nintendo’s Wii U concept video, the controller’s screen mirrored what was happening on a television. The controller was placed on the ground to act like a golf tee and attached to a Wii rifle as a sniper scope. The small screen displayed photos that could be flicked onto  the big screen, and acted as a mini Web browser that reflected its content on the television. It even made video calls. Impressive stuff, sure, but it a little skepticism is always healthy when you’re talking about a console that’s in its early stages.

Do ergonomics matter?

I haven’t seen the Wii U’s controller up close, but with a 6.2-inch screen and a big bezel for thumbsticks and buttons, it’ll certainly be larger than the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 controllers. There’s also no sign of any contours to fit the hands. This may not be a dealbreaker — I’ve grown accustomed to holding tablets, after all — but it’s something to consider.

How will online work?

Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata said in 2010 that the company isn’t satisfied with its online efforts so far, but Nintendo’s Wii U reveal contained no details on whether an overhauled online system is in the works. I’ll wager that Nintendo wants to get away from the cumbersome friend code system of the Wii and Nintendo DS, but whether it’ll be a clone of Xbox Live and the Playstation Network or something entirely different remains to be seen.

Is a mass conversion at hand?

The Wii U has the hardware and the controller layout to play the same kinds of games that appear on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Already, several publishers have pledged their support for upcoming titles, such as Batman: Arkham City from Warner Bros. and Darksiders 2 from THQ. But what about the huge back catalog of games that have already been released for the Xbox 360 and PS3? If publishers start converting or repackaging their biggest hits for the Wii U, I won’t be surprised.

Where Was Activision?

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello strode onto Nintendo’s stage and announced an “unprecedented partnership” to produce games for the Wii U, hinting that the company’s Battlefield series could eventually come to the platform. Other game developers showed their excitement in a testimonial video. Activision, however, was notably absent, so don’t expect Call of Duty Wii U out of the gate. What gives?

Was the Wii Remote a fad?

Continuing a trend that seemed to be percolating last year, Nintendo didn’t put much emphasis on motion controls, neither with the Wii nor the new console. The Wii U will be backwards compatible, and Nintendo showed support for existing Wii Remotes, but it seems like Nintendo is bringing back an emphasis on the D-pad and buttons of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, along with the touch screens that have made smartphone gaming so popular.

Could the Wii U someday be portable?

Iwata emphasized that the Wii U is not a portable gaming device. Anything that appears on the controller’s screen will be streamed wirelessly from the home gaming system — without latency issues, he said. But that doesn’t mean the Wii U concept could never be portable. Mobile processors are getting faster all the time, and it won’t be long before the fancy graphics of current-generation gaming devices are possible on smaller screens. I wouldn’t rule out a Wii U portable in the future, even if Nintendo isnt’ talking about it now.

How much will the Wii U cost?

Nintendo didn’t reveal a price or release date for the Wii U. I’m willing to throw out $300 as a wild guess, but the bigger question is how much the controller will cost. It is, after all, quite different from anything we’ve seen before.

Although the Playstation 3 has become a multimedia powerhouse — Sony dropped the nugget that its console accounts for 30 percent of all Netflix streaming — Sony’s E3 press conference was almost entirely about games. The requisite parade of exclusives came first, followed by launch details for Sony’s next-generation portable, now known as the Playstation Vita.

The Vita is a handheld gaming device with a 5-inch touch screen, a rear touch-pad, dual thumbsticks and a quad-core processor, but we knew that already. On Monday, Sony announced that the Vita will launch this holiday season and will cost $250 for a Wi-Fi model and $300 for a model with AT&T 3G.

Yes, 3G. I’m still skeptical that people want a data plan for a gaming device, but perhaps we’ll see some innovative pricing instead of a flat monthly rate. Those details weren’t announced. Sony says that more than 80 games are in development for the PSVita, but only showed a handful at its press conference. The highlight was Uncharted: Golden Abyss, an adventure shooter that stays faithful to its PS3 counterparts while adding some touch screen and gesture controls. I was also interested in Ruin, an action RPG that will let players continue their progress on a companion PS3 version. I plan to get some hands on time with the PSVita later this week.

Except for the new handheld, Sony’s E3 press conference was more of the same, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While Microsoft’s E3 press event was filled with lofty statements on the future of home entertainment, Sony’s press conference was more like a celebration of video games. We saw demonstrations of Uncharted: Drake’s Deception and NBA 2K12, with Kobe Bryant on stage to show off the basketball game’s optional Playstation Move motion controls. We donned 3D glasses for Resistance 3. And to boast the Playstation 3′s Blu-ray player, Sony announced that the upcoming Bioshock Infinite will include the original Bioshock on the same disc. Same goes for EA’s Battlefield 3, which will include Battlefield 1943 on a single Blu-ray disc.

There was one hardware surprise at Sony’s E3 press conference: This fall, the company will sell a Playstation-branded 24-inch 3DTV, bundled with a pair of glasses, an HDMI cable and Resistance 3 for $500. The goal is hook college kids on 3D as they equip their dorm rooms with televisions. These TVs will also allow for cooperative gaming without splitting the screen, realizing a patent that surfaced last year.

Oh, and Sony didn’t ignore the security breach that brought down the Playstation Network for nearly a month in April and May, but didn’t dwell on it either. Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, apologized to gamers, opined on the importance of third-party publishers and retailers, and gave a snarky “you’re welcome” to the press for providing them (er, us) with weeks of controversy.

And with that, it was on to the games.

Kinect, the motion-sensing, audio-detecting Xbox 360 camera that launched last year, dominated the discussion at Microsoft’s press conference. I counted 15 announcements for games that will either support or require Kinect, plus a revamped console menu designed for gestures and voice.

The big showing for Kinect was expected, but I was surprised to see the directions in which Microsoft is taking the $150 peripheral. Several big-budget action games will include optional Kinect features. For instance, Mass Effect 3 will let players bark orders to their AI comrades, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will include a weapon assembly mode for swiping in new barrels and stocks.

Some future core games are being designed specifically for Kinect, including Ryse, a hand-to-hand combat game set in ancient Rome and Fable: The Journey, an on-rails action game in which players summon magic with their hands. Less impressive was Kinect Star Wars, a hack-and-slash game that seemed a bit laggy in the on-stage demonstration.

Still, Microsoft’s not letting the casual audience slip away. Kinect Sports is getting the sequel treatment with new games such as football and golf, and a new partnership with Disney will yield Kinect Disneyland Adventures, a virtual theme park with motion-controlled adaptations of popular rides. A Kinect game based on Sesame Street is also in development. I’m not sure where this sits on the casual-hardcore spectrum, but EA Sports will bring Kinect support to four of its games over the next year, including Tiger Woods, FIFA and Madden.

And then, there was Minecraft. Although it wasn’t demonstrated on stage, the build-your-own-world indie darling will land exclusively on Xbox 360 with Kinect support this year.

Outside of gaming, Microsoft will integrate the entire Xbox 360 dashboard with Kinect this fall. Previously, you had to use a special Kinect menu with limited features. The dashboard will also get content search powered by Bing and a YouTube app. Finally, Microsoft is finally harnessing the power of bedroom programmers, who can submit their own Kinect experiments to a new feature called Kinect Fun Lab. Microsoft demonstrated this feature with an avatar scanner and a 3D painting program.

Of course, Microsoft trotted out its usual exclusive games, including Gears of War 3, the rumored Halo 1 remake and an early Halo 4 teaser, but the other big news was an upcoming live TV package for U.S. users — or at least it was supposed to be. Rumor had it that Microsoft would introduce a new tier of Xbox Live service that included cable-like TV content. But the actual announcement was rather subdued, with only vague promises of news, sports and local channels to come. The only content partnership Microsoft announced is with UFC, allowing fans to order live fights and interact by predicting who will win.

After the press conference, I spoke with Mike Delman, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of global marketing for interactive entertainment. He said more content deals are in progress, and insisted that the real challenge for Internet TV isn’t getting the content, but managing it once it’s on your system — hence Bing search and Kinect navigation. Still, there are countless examples of content owners treating potential cable-killers with caution — limited content on Hulu Plus, for example, or only a couple major networks participating in $1 Apple TV rentals — and I doubt it’s going to be much easier for Microsoft.

I’ll be checking out some of Microsoft’s Kinect stuff as E3 progresses. Stay tuned, and use the E3 tag for all coverage from the show.