Okay, so I know that a few months ago I said I no longer care about E3 anymore. Well, I lied, because right now I’m getting pumped for the big three conferences planned for early next week. So far this week has been full of all sorts of great little nuggets of information that I can’t help but get fired up over, like the Metal Gear teaser images and first footage on promising games like Rabbids Go Home.

Of course we all know that the real meat and potatoes are the press conferences. As always, this is the one time where all three major competitors get together and spend an hour trying to one up each other. Each company has considerable weight on them this year being that it’s the middle of this hardware generation. The past two years have been these companies telling us why we need to have their latest system, and this year they’ll be telling us why we should stick around and how they’re going to continue selling their machines.

On Monday Microsoft goes first, and of all three of the companies I think these guys are the biggest wild card. Will they really show their iToy rival and will it be a true contender as a must have product along the lines of the Wii Balance board? More importantly, what type of software are they going to have? Part of me thinks Microsoft is going to rest on their laurels and show us lots of shooters, but I think at this point Microsoft knows better than to do that. Assuming this motion control camera thing is real, I would highly suspect them to put a huge focus on it through means of multiple games. One of these games, I’d imagine, will come from Rare. The real question is, does anyone care about Rare these days anyway? That said, I’m not exactly sure what to expect from Microsoft outside of the usual suspects. Should be interesting.

Nintendo goes second early Tuesday morning, and after last years debacle of Ravi Drums, Cammy playing Shaun White Snowboarding, countless other eye rolling moments and only a handful of legit game reveals, Nintendo has lots of pressure in their corner. Regardless of what anyone believes about Nintendo moving away from their core fan base, they understand that without their core fan base they wouldn’t be in the position they are today. Without that group of people who believed in their vision of the Wii, maybe they wouldn’t be in the position they’re in today. That said, I think they’ll be more willing to show stuff that long time fans want to see, and my bets are on a new Motion plus enabled Zelda game. Aside from that, Miyamoto will have something new in the Wii line that will hopefully stimulate people more than Wii Music did last year. Other than that, I’m trying to keep my expectations in check. In the end, Nintendo will have a safe, probably decent (if not predictable) showing.

The company I’m most ready to see is Sony. The Playstation brand has been tarnished, and Sony is not going to lose over 10 years of hard work making that brand a household name just because of a few missteps. If rumors are to be believed, Sony will be showing both a new, UMD-less PSP, and a slim PS3. I was never much of a believer in new hardware versions making a console more popular, but after seeing how the DS Lite and now DSi shook things up in the DS camp, anything is possible. I still think a UMD-less PSP is a risky move, but it’s a risk I want to see Sony take. A new, sleeker, and cheaper PS3 could also go a long way to help make the system more appealing. Outside of hardware though, I’m really interested in Sony’s software. They have the most diverse line up of first party games out of the three companies with stuff like Uncharted, Trico, Sing Star, Rachet, God of War, and MAG all hitting completely different groups. That’s just the stuff we know about, so who the hell knows what kind of new interesting IPs Sony will pull out for the show.

The fun starts Monday, and you’ll be able to watch the conferences through plenty of different websites (like IGN, Gamestop, 1up, G4TV).

What are you hoping to see out of E3?