There is an obvious lack of insanity to it, a goal for a quieter event that the organizers have sought for years. There are fewer gamers, many unattached to the journalism community, who once made the annual trek for all of the touchy, feely, eye-popping wares offered by industry. There's less theatrics from big news conferences (which so far are a bit of a yawn). And, of course, fewer of those scantily clad ladies oozing around booths hawking new products. Wonder what they are doing to make up for the lost revenue?

That isn't to say E3 is a bomb. There are still many things to rap about, and since readers will know about most of it when this column is published, I won't rehash the big news. Just a couple of comments on what we have all seen and heard, through news outlets and the Web.

This just isn't an earth-shattering E3, and much of it has to do with the cycle of the industry more than anything else. The big three (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) are well into the current generation of consoles, and until new ones are mentioned (a couple of years out, I imagine), skirmishes in the console wars are the order of the day.

Sony does seem to be approaching cruise control, however, something that took a lot longer than any of us expected. With its Blu-ray technology locking up the high-def wars, it's concentrating on product refinement.

It seems Sony has decided to end the multiple PS3 variations on store shelves once and for all come this September. With the introduction of a $399, 80-gig PS3 at the Sony news conference, Jack Tretton, president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, has finally poohpoohed all those price fluctuations. Thank goodness, I was tired of writing about them all.

This should be the last and only PS3 available by the holidays. No more differing price points confusing customers. The only confusing thing about the new unit is that it won't have built-in hardware to play PlayStation 2 games. There may be some software emulation to pick up the slack, but I haven't heard about it. Neither the Microsoft Xbox 360 nor the Nintendo Wii offers 100 percent backward compatibility either.

Software and services announcements are a bit more interesting.

Sony gave us a glimpse of God of War III (as much of a Sony flagship title now as any other title), but the sleeper was a game called, so far, MAG, or Massive Action Game. The title is the biggest dud so far, but the game's premise is, well, "extra." Up to 256 players shooting it out in a single game? What? Who will be writing that netcode (software that travels on the Web between gamers and servers during gameplay - the more players, the more difficult it is to write)?

Granted, a few PC games have been able to pull that off, but I remain skeptical about that player count until someone proves me wrong.

Microsoft dropped a couple of bombs, too. The first has nothing to do with games. Starting in fall, Xbox 360 owners will be able to watch Netflix movies through their console. That is a big deal and could potentially double the number of Netflix customers, not to mention basically outsourcing a service Microsoft is happy to have provided by someone else. Sources say Xbox live subscribers won't need to sign up for a Netflix subscription either. Sounds pretty easy.

Then there is Final Fantasy XIII. For years, developer Square Enix has said this, one of the most successful role-playing game series, was bound to stay in bed with Sony and its PS3 since that was the only console powerful enough to run it. Now we can say, "Whatever, man."

One of the most highly anticipated games of fall will hit the Xbox 360 console the same day as the PS3. There are still many gamers who were ready to pick up a PS3 just for this game. Not anymore, it seems.

That news was enough to drown out some peculiar actions from the Halo people, Bungie. The Bungie Web site has been hinting at some huge news announcement for a week now. Rumors were rampant with speculation about a new Master Chief-less Halo title. Then . . . nothing. Just a note on the site saying: "We were looking forward to sharing that with our fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were just changed by our publisher."

Wait, so this is Microsoft's doing? The intrigue, and disappointment, just went into overdrive for Halo fans.

Nintendo, right now, reminds me of a fat cat sitting back in a La-Z-Boy, smoking a cigar, while people just lay pots of gold at its feet in tribute. For real, man, the Wii is still "outta control" in terms of sales.

See, Nintendo works off its own well-known properties, so when E3 rolls around we get new announcements, but most of it is based on games already familiar to us. For consumers, it never seems to have any consequences as the games are usually dope, anyway.

So we have more Animal Crossing, a new Wario Game, the second Wii Sports title, and the like.

Nintendo isn't totally resting on its IP tuchas, however, as huge third-party developer Rockstar is now on the A-list with a new title for the DS, Lucas Arts is saying "Wii-too" with a new Star Wars: Clone Wars game on tap, and even the serious shooters are comfortable now with their sights set on Nintendo as Activision announced another Call of Duty title for the console World at War. They deserve another try anyway as COD3 was DOA in terms of fun.

Looks like someone is trying to move into the territory dominated by more serious gamers.