Microsoft’s motion-sensor, controller-free system, Kinect for the Xbox, continued to draw ridiculously large crowds to its demo today. By about 1:30pm we’d already waited in line for two hours, and one of the Xbox demo guys said they’d only shown the system to around 160 people. So if you figure E3 attracted 45,000 people this year … well, most people won’t be playing with the Kinect for a while.

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The video game industry’s premier showcase event, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, officially kicked off today in downtown Los Angeles, following press conferences from Nintendo and Sony.

Nintendo got off to a rocky start this morning when gaming legend Shigeru Miyamoto came onstage to debut The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii … and couldn’t get it to work properly. All was forgiven, though, when the highly anticipated Nintendo 3DS was officially unveiled – the world’s first portable 3D console, which not only plays games in 3D, but lets you take 3D pictures and play 3D movies. All without those dumb glasses!

Which brings us to Sony, whose 3D does require the dumb glasses. They’re introducing a number of 3D titles, none of which seem terribly exciting, so hopefully you haven’t gone out and bought that new 3D Bravia yet. Sony also demoed the Playstation Move, their new motion-sensor system (think Wii) and several titles.

Yesterday Microsoft unveiled Kinect, the controller-free motion sensor system previously known as Natal, and a number of titles, including Kinect Adventures:

Tomorrow we’re going to try to brave the long lines and get hands-on with the Playstation Move, the Xbox Kinect, Nintendo’s 3DS, Sony’s LittleBigPlanet 2.

Here’s a trailer for LittleBigPlanet 2: the sequel to the critically acclaimed and much-loved original and Disney’s Epic Mickey for the Wii, formerly hush-hush adventure incorporating everything from Disney movies to Disneyland rides.

In this ‘ship now, patch later’ era, video game companies take a lot of flak for glitches, but none have proven so bizarre and hilarious as what people have spotted in Rockstar Games’ blockbuster old west adventure Red Dead Redemption, such as the downright-creepy Bird People, tastefully depicted here with the game’s “Dead-Eye” targeting system to ensure maximum carnage.

Gamers have so far also catalogued The Donkey Lady, Cougar-Man, Flying Deer, Gunslinger Dog and Invisible Horses, to name just a few nightmare-inducing/completely awesome curiosities in the game’s vast, open world environment.

The 2nd Most Embarrassing Thing To Be Caught Doing In Front Of A TV Microsoft will formally unveil its Project Natal ‘full-body motion controller’ during the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles next week.