Playable Press

Criterion never seizes to impress in pushing racing games forward. With the reveal of Need For Speed Most Wanted at today's EA Press Conference the studio continues to prove its pedigree of having some of the most intense car chase sequences in the genre.

EA has announced that Battlefield 3 Premium is now available with Playstation 3 owners getting the green light to buy into the service and benefits immediately. For $49.99, players of the PS3 version of the game will have access to the Close Quarters map pack today.

Microsoft flung several trailers at us in the course of their presentation, one of which was for the Kinect exclusive Fable: The Journey. The first canonical game in the series since creator Peter Molyneux's departure from Lionhead, the video gives us an optimistic hint at the arm-flailing spellcasting to come.

Xbox360's forays as a multimedia platform have met with moderate success, but according to Microsoft's Mark Whitney we've only seen the beginning. Whitney used his time on the floor during the company's conference today to introduce Xbox SmartGlass technology, a system through which Microsoft aims to link smart devices to their system to allow for a deeper level of control with games and movies.

After Nintendo snuck in an early first punch yesterday afternoon, Microsoft was eager to put their best - or at least most popular - foot forward for their conference. Their show cold-started with a combination live action/gameplay video of 343 Industries' Halo 4.

The recent closing of 38 Studios and its Big Huge Games subsidiary left a bit of a bad taste in our mouths, so to hear that another studio is stepping up to help employ the displaced devs renews a little of our faith in the industry. Epic president Michael Capps announced his plans for the itinerant studios:

Endeavoring to sate impatient fans and get a jump on the major developers ahead of them in line for E3 conferences (read: all of them), Nintendo took the initiaitve earlier today and posted a pre-E3 presentation on some of the Wii U's new features. Company president Satoru Iwata hosted the presentation, which had a heavy slant on the Wii U's deep connection with social media and personal interconnectivity between players.

Despite record-breaking sales figures (3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours) Diablo III's launch didn't go quite as smoothly as Blizzard may have wanted; Already sacrificing PVP at launch to keep the release within the foreseeable future and still suffering from connectivity issues, the game's heavily advertised real-money auction house feature was officially "delayed indefinitely" last week after issues forced its intended May 22 start to be postponed.

Remember Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe? Remember the lukewarm reception from the community? Do you think that was a result of a generally average game or confusion over mixing two properties that don't end up meshing as well as those in its Marvel vs. Capcom inspiration?

The report last month that the Apple brand TV due out later this year would come bundled with a dedicated gaming console had gamers and Apple fans alike curious to see what the California-based company would produce. According to CEO Tim Cook, however, this won't be happening.