Gizmo Guy gets his Nintendo game back on

THE ANNUAL ORGY of video games that is E3 landed in Los Angeles last week. As ever, the big three - Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo - jockeyed for supremacy with offerings for their latest generation consoles.

But there were renewed grumblings from peripheral makers like Mad Catz that industry growth belongs more to tablet-based games you'll "throw" to your TV screen.

BOUNCING BACK: Times have been tough lately for Nintendo and its "new generation" Wii U - the game console with the "second screen" tablet controller.

At this E3 though, Nintendo looked like the comeback kid with gleefully original content, most set to appear in - sigh - 2015.

Best-received game of the entire trade show was Nintendo's "Splatoon," a four-on-four multi- player action game where you blot out opponents with blasts of ink and strategically swim like a squid through pools of the stuff. Yes, paintball is back!

Also celebrated were designer Shigeru Miyamoto's multiple creations deploying the Wii U Game Pad controller, such as "Project Giant Robot" and "Star Fox." Build your own Super Mario Bros. game levels in "Mario Maker."

Nintendo's new interactive gaming figures, amiibo, work the same sort of magic as the plastic characters that come with "Skylanders" and "Disney Infinity," transferring from your hand to TV game-screen action.

But amiibos are Nintendo stars (like Mario), can function in multiple titles (initially, "Super Smash Bros.," debuting on Wii-U at year's end) and can even pal around in other developers' games. And because these toys work with the Game Pad's onboard Near Field Communications technology, there's no need to place them on a portal stand.

SONY DIVERSIFIES: PlayStation TV ($99, coming this fall) is a micro console that functions as both a stand-alone streaming game player with the PlayStation Now (PSN) download service and as a second-room delivery device for a PS4 game system.

So if Mom and Dad chase you out of the living room (where your PS4 is based), you can continue playing on a palm-sized PS TV connected to a bedroom TV.

PSN service launches first on the PS4 in "open beta" form July 31, with more than 100 "greatest hits" titles to choose from the PS1, 2, and 3, and portable game catalogs. The streaming/download game service also will link up, soon, with PS3 consoles, the PS Vita portable and even some current Sony smart TVs.

Already claiming an installed worldwide base of 7 million consoles (best by far of the three new generation systems), PS4 will increase its library of high-definition titles to more than 120 by year's end, said Sony. Among them, new exclusives like "Little Big Planet 3," "SingStar" and "Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty," plus lots more third-party biggies shared withXbox One, like "Assassin's Creed Unity."

HITTING THEIR CORE: Chastened by less than enthralling sales and public interest in Xbox One's multimedia skills, Microsoft focused almost entirely on games for the new system at E3. The fairy tale-themed and richly illustrated "Ori and the Blind Forest" was a standout among fall releases, along with Insomniac's "Sunset Overdrive" and "Fable Legends," which allows you to control its world as a mean-spirited deity.

Microsoft's biggest franchise, "Halo," is being retuned for Xbox One with "The Master Chief Collection," which lets you replay the entire saga and move onto the next plateau, with early access to the beta version of "Halo 5 Guardians."

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