Gaming is moving to a new dimension at E3, writes CIARA O'BRIEN

A MAJOR GAMES trade exhibition is about to kick off in California, giving games fans an indication of exactly what will be coming up for the rest of the year.

E3 is considered to be one of the biggest and most important events of the year for the industry, and companies usually use the event to unveil new games and hardware.

Last year, motion- sensitive gaming was the centre of attention. Microsoft unveiled Project Natal, its effort to ditch the controllers and bring motion-sensitive gaming to the Xbox. Sony gave some details on what would later become known as Move, and Nintendo, for its part, showed off the Wii Motion Plus controller add-on. The only thing that has made it to market so far is Nintendo's product.

It looks like motion-sensitive gaming will be big again this year. Microsoft is expected to show off a bit more of what Natal will be able to do when it launches later this year, and Sony has plans to demo Move.A recent demo of Natal in Dublin showed off some pretty impressive stuff. The cameras track your movement, and replicate it on screen, which, while not suitable for every game, has some good applications, particularly for sports games.

It's an area that Nintendo has dominated for the past few years, so it will be interesting to see what the fresh competition will mean. Sony Movewill be exciting too, as it will be the first time for many to see the device working in person.

3D gaming was also a hit at CES earlier this year, and Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all planning to get on board with the new technology. Nintendo announced earlier this year that it is planning a 3D version of its Nintendo DS console.

There are predictions of a Zelda-related announcement for Nintendo, and there are also rumours of a slimmed-down Xbox 360 console, similar to the PS3, which has been pretty successful for Sony.

And that's before we even get into looking at the titles expected to show up at E3 – Fable III, KillZone 3and Gran Turismoare all expected to feature.

The good news is that this year, I get to go. So I’ll be bringing you live coverage from the event where possible on Twitter and on the blog, as well as in print.

irishtimes.com/blogs/ minibyte, Twitter: @ciaraobrien