Jonathan Takiff: Who's got game at expo: Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo

THE GIZMO: Hot flashes from this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.

UPPING THE ANTE: Smartphone and tablet-based video game titles are taking an increasing chunk of the casual gaming market. At E3, video game giants Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo (and their third-party allies) are fighting back with serious new additions to their hardware and software portfolios to keep hardcore and occasional gamers in their corner.

MICROSOFT TO BAT: While the brand has nothing new in the hardware department, Microsoft will put lots more heat behind the new Kinect motion-sensor peripheral for gaming and other entertainment uses.

Last year's first Kinect games were targeted mostly to the casual/exercise/dance-party crowds. But at its press conference Monday, Microsoft brought up third-party game makers to preview longer-in-development hardcore games with Kinect control like "Mass Effects 3" from EA/BioWare, Crytek's "Ryse" and Ubisoft's "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier" where you'll be pulling stunts such as assembling, loading, aiming and firing invisible guns with your bare hands. Or shout audibles to start the next play in 2012 EA sports titles like "Madden Football."

More family-friendly are "Kinect Disneyland Adventures" from Disney that set you soaring in theme park rides (like "Peter Pan's Neverland") and LucasArts' "Star Wars Kinect" where you wield (what else?) an invisible lightsaber. Also cute for all and newly available is Kinect Fun Labs, an Xbox Live destination using the peripheral's camera to create game avatars that truly look like the player (among other tricks).

A next-gen "Halo" for 2012 was hinted at, but devoid of details.

Forty percent of all Xbox activity is now "nongame," said vice president of corporate communications Frank Shaw, and that number is likely to grow with a new dashboard update in the fall. Mashing the Kinect peripheral with Microsoft's Bing search engine, the promise is fast and hands-free (voice) summoning of entertainment from the likes of Netflix, Hulu Plus, ESPN, YouTube and Xbox Live.

SONY SHINES: After apologizing profusely (again) for the recent security breaches and downtime of its PlayStation Network, Sony execs aimed to make amends at their press conference with news of a next-generation portable game system - officially named PS Vita - plus developments on the home gaming front, especially with 3-D.