Oculus Rift beats Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in Game Critics E3 award

Virtual reality headset Oculus Rift has pipped both Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One to win the award for Best Hardware/Peripheral in the E3 2013 Game Critics Award.

While Microsoft and Sony were holding large press conferences for their latest consoles, E3 2013 also saw the first public demonstration of a 1080p version of Oculus Rift. The Razr Blade and Nvidia Shield were also nominated in the Best Hardware/Peripheral category.

Titanfall, which is being released for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC in 2014, won the most awards in the game categories, including Best of Show. Respawn Entertainment's multiplayer-focused title scooped up six awards in total, and won both the Best Console Game and Best PC Game categories.

Elsewhere, Watch Dogs, The Elder Scrolls Online, Need for Speed: Rivals, NHL 14, and Total War: Rome 2 won the awards for their respective genres.

The Best Handheld/Mobile Game went to Media Molecule's PS Vita exclusive Tearaway, Best Social/Casual Game was given to Harmonix's Fantasia, and Supergiant Games' Transistor won the award for Best Downloadable Game.

30 North American media outlets, including GameSpot, vote on the annual Game Critics Award.

The full list of winners is below:

• Best of Show: Titanfall (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts)
• Best Original Game: Titanfall
• Best Console Game: Titanfall
• Best Handheld/Mobile Game: Tearaway (Media Molecule/Sony Computer Entertainment of America)
• Best PC Game: Titanfall
• Best Hardware/Peripheral: Oculus Rift (Oculus VR)
• Best Action Game: Titanfall
• Best Action/Adventure Game: Watch Dogs (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
• Best Role Playing Game: The Elder Scrolls Online (Zenimax Online/Bethesda Softworks)
• Best Racing Game: Need for Speed: Rivals (Ghost Games/Electronic Arts)
• Best Sports Game: NHL 14 (EA Canada/EA Sports)
• Best Strategy Game: Total War: Rome 2 (The Creative Assembly/Sega)
• Best Social/Casual Game: Fantasia: Music Evolved (Harmonix/Disney Interactive)
• Best Online Multiplayer: Titanfall
• Best Downloadable Game: Transistor (Supergiant Games)

GameSpot's Best of Show winners for E3 2013 were Battlefield 4, Bayonetta 2, Destiny, Fantasia: Music Evolved, Forza Motorsport 5, Mario Kart 8, Rayman Legends, The Crew, The Division, The Witcher 3, Titanfall, and Watch Dogs.