The annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3, is just around the corner and videogame creators are preparing to unveil their latest creations. In mid-June, a few enthusiast sites have managed to get their hands on quite a lot of titles whose release should have been a surprise at the E3 Media and Business Summit set for July 15-17.

Among the rumors announced in mid-June were:

- Microsoft will apparently introduce Xbox 360 avatars for Xbox LIVE; there is also some sort of frightening bunny-mouse avatar; the avatars will allegedly be used in place of the gamer picture and will be "fully customizable" and animated; the claim is that they are "lifelike" but they aren't, judging from the picture (see bunny-mouse note above!)

- The new Guitar Hero 4 will feature a new touch-sensitive guitar dubbed Neck Slide which opens up the entire guitar neck for unbound solos; the game including instruments will cost $180; featured artists include Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Korn, System of a Down and Ozzy Osbourne.

- Some sort of nonsense emulator which is called Trioxide and will allow console games (all platforms apparently) to be played on a PC; Kotaku claims they got two prices for it $49 and $299 (the latter probably includes some sort of hardware)

- Wii Yoga, to be played with both the motion sensing Wii controller and the balance board

- Several games such as Transformers 2: The Ultimate Battle for all current consoles

- Call of Duty: World at War; The fifth incarnation is set in the Pacific theatre and Eastern front of World War II and will be released for both PCs and gaming consoles.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is expected to announce a $50 price cut for its Xbox 360, thus dropping the price of the 20GB Xbox 360 Pro to $299 in the US and Canada, down $50 from its prior $349. New titles include "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" from the LucasArts game studio of filmmaker George Lucas and "Prince of Persia" by French game-making star Ubisoft.

We'll have to wait out a little more for more confirmations on these mid-June leaks, as some appear suspect. The most baffling one is the Trioxide emulator which appears both legally challenged and pointless: if the Kotaku price is right, it will cost about the same price as a full-fledged console.