No Nintendo Revolution at E3?

Nintendo may leave Sony and Microsoft to squabble amongst themselves over who's got the best next-gen console at this year's E3, according to reports.

Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 will go on show at the event, but reports from Japan say the Nintendo Revolution will remain under wraps. There'll be a few rolling demos of games currently in development, but no console and no revolutionary controller on display.

So why the decision to stay out of the limelight? Well, it seems that Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata is worried about rivals nicking all his best ideas at this early stage. That's how revolutionary the new console is, apparently... and also the exact same line Nintendo used to avoid showing Mario 128 at a previous E3.

So what exactly can we expect to see on the Nintendo stand? Well, most of the space will be devoted to promoting the new Nintendo Online service. It'll be demonstrated using the DS, and it's thought that the Revolution could have a wireless router capability for hooking up the handheld to the internet. All this will be explained at the publisher's May 17 conference.

Other stuff on show will include the new Zelda game - we're promised that a playable demo will be available. Plus Pokémon XD for GameCube, Emerald for GBA and Diamond and Pearl for DS - the latter two featuring online functionality.