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E3, up until about 2006 or so, was the huge, major, central expo for the industry. A huge percentage of the big announcements and unveiling’s occurred at E3 – they still do, as evidenced by our massive E3 coverage and the fact that everyone is buzzing with excitement about next week. It’s just that now, we have a steady stream of news all year long, and several other expos, like PAX, E-for-all, and GDC that offer up plenty of buzz-worthy announcements.
But back in the day (the day being 2000-2006, in this installment), E3 was king. If you’ve read part 1, you know that the show was started in the mid 1990′s, and it grew steadily into the biggest single event of the year for the press, gamers, developers, harried PR people, and the “booth babes” as they were called. The early 2000′s continued the trend, with ever-increasing attendance rates and marketing budgets.
Truly one of the most exciting E3 moments -ever- was the unveiling of the Metal Gear Solid 2 trailer in 2000. The game was so hotly anticipated, and the PlayStation 2 was such a new technological marvel at the time, that the amazing-looking trailer literally brought some show-goers to tears. Powerful, postmodern stuff, no? The 2001 show was all about new hardware and the bloody console war, with Microsoft’s first foray into console gaming (the Xbox) and Nintendo’s latest, the Gamecube.
As the years went on, the current state of the industry was established. Nintendo started going experimental and casual, first with the DS’ unveiling in 2004 and finally with 2006′s epic showing of the Wii, in which attendees waited in hours-long lines just to get a swing at Wii Sports. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 both had stellar, super-hyped shows in 2005 and 2006, respectively, and a host of hot titles were shown off to the massive audience.
Everything changed for 2007 – the show became a much smaller, much more compartmentalized affair, with invitation-only press conferences playing to harried journalists rushing from one location to another. Still, the “Big three” each had a massive press conference, streamed in realtime to eager fans the world over, and there was plenty of excitement over titles like Halo 3, Assassin’s Creed, Super Mario Galaxy, and so on. 2008 looks to be a similar affair – but that doesn’t mean there’ll be any shortage of big reveals. We’ll find out next week, so stay tuned!
Read [Part 1]
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