We've plenty discussed Xbox 360 backward compatibility issues over the last few months, but we've nary addressed what's in store for Sony's PlayStation 3. Maybe it was the PlayStation 2's recent difficulties in playing old (and even new) games that re-prompted the question, but it's almost like people have been taking it for granted that the PS3 would be able to play PS2 games—especially after precedent was set by having the PS2 play original PlayStation games and they ran their it's-gonna-be-backwards-compatible E3 launch in spite of Microsoft's then-soft stance on the issue. But after Sony's recent PS2 debacle overseas, it was reported that Sony spokesperson Reiko Sakamoto told the press, "It's hard to say the PlayStation 3 will be 100 percent backwards compatible, but as we said earlier this year we aim to make it so as much as possible." If they're having trouble making minor changes to the PS2 and actually leaving a bit of doubt as to whether the PS3 will work as expected, well, we're not liking the sound of this, not one bit.

[Thanks, Tomo]

We've been known to get a little anxious waiting for new gadgets, but we usually don't take it as far as building them ourselves. Tsietisin wanted to know how the new Nintendo Revolution controller would actually play. Luckily he already had an assortment of bizarre controllers. By combining a Gyration mouse with an ASCII Grip one handed Playstation controller and a custom keymap he tried playing Half-Life 2 deathmatch. Aiming proved to be more difficult, but Tsietisin feels that, with a little practice, gamers will love this new controller layout. Oook.

Well with development, you spend usually one to two years on a game. But in actuality, you kind of have ideas that are floating around in your head for three, four, even five years before that. In my case, oftentimes I'll just have an object sitting my desk that'll be sitting there for a long time, and I'll kind of interact with it and it will spur ideas. In this case, about four years ago, my family and I bought a dog and started taking care of it and that became the impetus for this project.

SPOnG can be a little irregular in the credibility department, but they're "confirming" with "100% certainty" that Nintendo is finally going to unveil the Revolution's much-speculated-upon controller, as well as show off several different games running on the next-gen console, at next month's Tokyo Games Show.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this one in]

Joystiq and Engadget got our grubby fingers on the Nintendo Revolution box (yes, the one behind the locked door in the secret room guarded by a beefy muscleman). We picked it up, we played with the buttons, we poked, we prodded, and we slipped a CD into it. Oops! We weren't supposed to do that. Guess what happened?

The CD just fell into the box. No mechanism grabbed the edge of the CD and pulled it in slowly, even though the box was plugged in. The CD just slid in cleanly and quickly except for brief resistance at the entrance. There wasn't any scraping or messy sound to it, so the CD didn't collide with any internal mechanism that one might expect it to collide with were such mechanisms present. To get the CD out, we just tipped the box over and it slid right back out. Really, it was as if the CD had been dropped into a small, rectangular box with smooth sides.

All that glowing slot does is just glow.

When we picked up the Revolution and turned it over in our hands, we noticed that was hefty and had a good, solid feel to it. All of the cables and plugs looked like they were functional as well. There was nothing obviously fake about this prototype except for the funny CD mechanism, but this is certainly curious. We also shook the box vigorously to see if there were any loose or moving parts inside of it but there were no sounds; everything appeared to be fixed inside the box.

Does this mean that the actual unit on display is a pure dummy model with a few weights inside it to give it heft? Does this indicate anything about how far along Nintendo is with the development of the Revolution? If we were to load a disc into the Xbox 360 or the PS3, what would happen? Is the lack of a working slot-loading mechanism worrisome, or typical in a prototype at this stage of development?

Edit: Anybody know if the Xbox 360 or PS3 models have working drive mechanisms?

Alright, Nintendo intro'd the Revolution just a few minutes ago, here's what we know so far:

• Release is sometime in 2006.

• Prototype shown is larger than final unit.

• Nintendo is still determining final colors for the console.

• All-Access Gaming, which refers to backwards compatibility to 20 years of Nintendo games, NES, SNES, N64. We don't know particulars of how it'll be accessed or what, if any, the cost structure might be.

• Downloadable to 512MB of flash memory.

• SD memory card slot.

• Wireless controllers.

• Two USB 2.0 ports.

• Built-in WiFi.

• WiFi used to interface with the DS.

• DS likely to enhance future games.

• Self-loading optical drive that will play 12cm Revolution discs and smaller GameCube discs

• Self-contained attachment for playing media content, including DVDs.

• No controller was shown. So even though the box looks a lot like the one leaked over the weekend, the accompanying controllers were not presented. So was it a leak, or a really good guess?

Hey everyone. We're at Hollywood and Highland to bring you our live coverage of the last big announcement of E3, Nintendo's Revolution system. We'll be bringing you up to the minute coverage, so stay tuned! Yesterday we had live PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 coverage, and this morning Nintendo released the first pics of their latest console to the press-details are still slim, so we'll see how everything pans out in the latest salvo of console launches.

Here we go! They warned us there will be strobe effects during the show. They have a little experience with sending kids into seizures, so better safe than sorry? We've already seen a dozen people playing their PSPs proudly; we won't exactly expect to see these folks at the afterparty, at least not sober anyway.

Will the Nintendo Revolution be the make-or-break console for Nintendo? Speculation amongst the gaming community has everyone wondering whether Nintendo might go the way of Sega and exit the console business entirely if the Revolution doesn't work out for them. Sony and Microsoft each see themselves as gunning for number one in this next generation of consoles, so will Nintendo be content with being third for a second generation in a row? We have a feeling they're going to shoot high and gun for second, but the stakes are higher than ever for round five of the console wars.