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The world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer Tuesday agreed to buy digital camera maker Premier Image Technology to expand its product offerings to cameras, projectors and other optical gear.

Busy in August? If not, then how about donning a kinky elf outfit and shooting for the title of “World Number 1 Cosplayer” at the 4th Annual World Cosplay Summit in Japan

Ken Kutaragi has drawn another distinction between the PS3 and Xbox 360; network gaming and other basic services are to be free, just like they are on your PC.

The images produced by Nvidia’s Quad SLI graphics technology are stunning, but you will not see them displayed on the show floor at Computex. Nvidia told graphics board makers not to show Quad SLI systems at their booths, or to even mention the technology by name but we caught it on video.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata spilled some more information on Nintendo’s forthcoming Wii console. We don’t have an announcement of shipping date, but we do have an announcement of the date of the shipping date announcement, which is almost as good. Right? Right?

Talking of updates, looks like that Xbox 360 Spring Update just went live, so get it while it’s hot over on Xbox Live. Hey, “more than 125 revolutionary features and enhancements” can’t be bad, can they?

Microsoft has adopted yet another platform under its broad strategy to provide games and game communities wherever users go.

Sony, in its infinite wisdom, has today upped the Japanese PSP firmware by 0.01 of a notch to version 2.71, and in doing so has bestowed upon the handheld the ability to download game demos to a Memory Stick.

Nintendo has finally got round to releasing a slimmed-down DS rumble pak suitable for the DS Lite.

Remember the Game Park XGP handheld gamers that caused such a fuss at E3? Well, we’re glad to say that the $150 XGP mini that was conspicuous by its non-functionality (ok, it was broken) back then is alive and well, with videos on YouTube to prove it.

Obsessive video-game playing has inched that much closer to social acceptability, now that 100 game-industry types and academics have met under the guise of the Digital Games Research Association Japan. DiGRA Japan looks to develop educational titles, conduct research and act as a liaison between the gaming industry and university-based technology developers.

The Nintendo DS is still lording it over the Japanese gaming market, nabbing more than 70 percent of games hardware sales in April. During the same period, the Xbox 360 couldn’t even break the 1 percent barrier.

Sony today announced yet another PSP bundle; this time it’s taking aim at the kids’ educational aids market while it shifts a few more units of its flagging handheld.

Capcom is planning to offer a little something extra to buyers of its smutty-as-you-can-make-it Finder Love game. The company will be giving away free bikinis with every purchase.

Here in LA, E3 2006 closes its doors today, so to mark its passing we’ve gathered together a bundle of videos of the significant announcements made at the show. At risk of stating the obvious, the standout events were the markers thrown down by Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft about the future of the Wii, the PS3, the Xbox and PC gaming. Click on for the vids.

So, we all know that the Nintendo Wii has stolen the show at E3, but do you realize what it takes for the average show attendee to actually get to play with the new wonder machine? A long, long wait in line, that’s what. Never mind the hardware — we’ve got loads of pics of the monster queue after the jump.

We’ve heard of Game Park’s XGP handheld games machines in the past before but have always been a little dubious of the ability of a small Korean upstart to seriously challenge Nintendo and Sony in the portable gaming arena. That changed slightly today.

Over the way at the PSP stand, there’s almost as much buzz as there is around the PS3, which is mainly due to the handheld’s ability to Wi-Fi content, including game demos, to the tooled-up super-nerds who have brought their own game machines to a freakin’ game show.

After days of teasing us with pre-show events and pre-pre-show parties, E3 finally opened its doors this morning and we’re braving the packed, sweaty show floor to bring you a close-up look at the goodies from the major players, starting with a spin round Sony’s stand.

Gamers using Nintendo’s next generation Wii console will be able to surf the Internet using a browser from Opera Software, the companies said Wednesday. Opera isn’t revealing specific capabilities of the Wii browser, which is still in development, but said it will be a full-featured browser.

Call it a sign of changing times — times in which the battle for your living room reigns supreme in the minds of traditional tech powerhouses. One example: about an hour in to Microsoft’s Xbox press event at Grauman’s Chinese Theater here in Los Angeles today at E3, Bill Gates, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, made a surprise appearance.

As the world and his dog know, Nintendo unveiled almost everything about its Wii console this morning at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, where we had Melissa Perenson on hand to provide a level-headed view of developments.

After this morning’s Nintendo press event here in LA, at which Shigeru Miyamoto and co revealed their Wii-colored future, we can’t help but feel that Nintendo’s strategy of staking the console’s future on that gyroscopic controller is a far riskier one than it appears from this side of the hype fug.

After months of silence Sony today named the launch date and price for the PlayStation 3, confirming its place as the most expensive game console yet produced. We wrap up the day’s news after the jump

Full details later on the PS3 secrets unveiled today at the Sony press conference here at E3 but we just heard from Sony in Japan that the new console will launch there before it drops anywhere else.

The Nintendo DS Lite will hit North American shops on June 11 and will cost $129.99. You may want to check your camping gear to make sure everything’s in order.

Here’s a heartwarming story about how Pokemon playing cards are actually bringing kiddies together instead of causing fights. A US parent writes that her child is sooo obsessed with the game that he forced her to find a Japanese kid who can teach him genuine “revelations” about the Pokemon universe.

If you thought Wii was a marketing blunder, welcome to the world of Sega, which has emblazoned Adolf Hitler on promo T-shirts for its WWII “Advanced Dai Sen Ryaku” (Advanced Big Strategy) game. This, on the 60th anniversary of the Tokyo war crimes trials. Is it possible to score two own goals at once?

Kogado Studios is serious about hooking its own ride on the maid-mania bandwagon that is hitting Japan real hard. The resulting Frankenstein product is a 13cm tall plastic figurine with a USB flash memory drive somewhere inside it that has a PC game called Dear Pianissimo locked ‘n loaded.

Typical: you move to Japan to get the latest tech news before the rest of the crowd and Nintendo, a Japanese company lest we forget, goes and spills its guts in the middle of the Tokyo night.

Still, the final name for the Revolution console isn’t altogether exciitiing, iis iit?

Things really started heating up today in Tokyo when Sony threw down the next-gen console gauntlet right at the feet of MS, claiming the PS3 would sell far more than the Xbox 360 is set for in its first few gasping months of life.

Plus, the Sony suits addressed the critical bottom line, going so far as to claim the PS3 should be profitable ASAP.

Goold old SPOnG has news on an imaginary game for an imaginary console, in this case it’s the Nintendo Revolution/Dolphin/Can of Tuna they’re talking about.

Joystiq has some news on the PS3 backwards-compatibility issue that we covered in depth last year. The latest reports indicate the same thing: it looks like not all PS2 games will work on the new PlayStation.

Sony Computer Entertainment will begin offering Tuesday a software update for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) that adds several features including support for Flash content and the ability to save audio podcasts.

Bluetake has just announced a BT v1.2 and A2DP Bluetooth dongle for the PSP that it’s branding the BT450Px (i-PHONO mini) to go with a bunch of Bluetooth headphones it’s also releasing.

Yup, we’re getting on Sony’s case again.

Hagiwara Sys-Com’s Easy Recorder for Memory Stick Duo lets you plug your RCA cable in one end, and out trots MPEG-4 at the other, all set to go for your PSP, video iPod or PC.

At the MS press conference in Tokyo today we discovered that the Xbox 360 wasn’t about to be relaunched but that the software giant’s gaming hardware division was still taking the console seriously in Japan.

Yesterday saw plenty of hysterical coverage of the so-called news that the PlayStation 3 would sell for between €499 and €599 in Europe, or up to $740.

Maybe we’re the ones with brain damage, but we thought it had been announced ages ago that Nintendo’s fabulously selling Brain Age will arrive in the US on Apr. 17.