The second official day of E3 2008 was highlighted with a keynote speech by the Entertainment Software Associations (ESA) CEO, Mike Gallagher (1:00 p.m. PT, July 16, 2008).

A stand-at-a-podium affair, Gallagher was obviously gung-ho about the industry he represents although the low attendance indicated that not many people were not very gung-ho to listen to him speak (although, according to Gamepot, a few more were in attendance for Gallagher’s speech than Gov. Rick Perry’s) . His keynote was more a call to the industry to unite and work together than industry stats, though there were a few of those, too.

Click through for a recap of his keynote…

If I could use a phrase to describe Konami’s press conference (2:30 p.m. PT, Wednesday, July 16, 2008) it would be, ” It started with a bang and ended with a thud.”

Konami already had a solid lineup to unveil to the masses with two new Castlevania games and Silent Hill: Homecoming and were well on their way to being the bright spot when it came to third party pressers for the event. The conference began with news about Metal Gear Online and the new Elebits for the DS.

From that point on we got some great information, gameplay and demos from the Castlevania and Silent Hill franchises and then not so much. Rock Revolution premiered last as Senior Product Manager, Lauren Facadomo, brought her all-girl cover band to play The Ramones, Blitzkrieg Pop. Talk about bad Joey, Dee Dee, and Johnny Ramon are all spinning in their graves right now. It only got worst from there.

Click for the bullet-point recap of the conference…

Take- Two’s press conference (10:45 a.m. PT, July 16, 2008) was shaping up to be an exciting start to day three of E3 considering they weren’t going to talk about a movie for an hour (I’m looking at you Capcom). With the announcement of the Grand Theft Auto series coming to the Nintendo DS, it seemed as though Take-Two would have more information unveil about this and maybe some other games that are under development for the company.

All-in-all the conference ended up being a yawn fest. Some of the highlights from the show included the kid friendly Dora the Explorer games and new clips surrounding 2K’s NBA and NHL franchises.

Click through for a recap of the conference…

Yeah, it’s a bit of a weird choice for a videogame keynote address, but Texas Gov. Rick Perry took the stage and talked today (9:15 a.m. PT, July 16, 2008) at E3 2008.

In his defense, Perry was pretty gushing about the videogame industry in a recent interview with the San Antonio Express-News, giving kind words to the money making power of the industry and expanding demographics of games.

According to the GamePolitics Live Blog (via Twitter so don’t blame me for the clicking), there were approximately 50 people who attended Perry’s keynote. That’s a pretty small crowd for a politician’s speech but likely because he’s not a name in the game industry and there are so many games to play at the Expo.

Even so, here’s bullet point style recap of Perry’s rather upbeat keynote…

Capcom officially ended the second day of press conferences for E3 2008 (4:30 p.m. PT, Tuesday, July 15, 2008) by going in a completely different direction. Rather than showing the audience some screenshots of their new title Flock or discussing the gameplay and the controversy surrounding Resident Evil 5, they instead decided to premier the mini trailer of Lost Planet: The Movie and talk about it.

After showing the CG’ed trailer the company rolled out some of the people working on the film to discuss it which included, Avi Arad (producer of the first two Spider-Man films) and (the voice of Solid Snake himself, and writer/co-writer of the first two X-men film) David Hayter.

Most of the conference ended up being a…

In keeping with the overall theme of E3 2008, Nintendo’s press event was a little on the anticlimactic side. We had the usual “everyone’s a gamer” shtick, plenty of impressive sales charts, a few embarrassingly wacky Wii game demos, and a couple of big-ish announcements – so it was quite a bit like last year’s show, really. I’m going to give the whole event the “good, bad, ugly” treatment and highlight the biggest news of the show. Be sure to check out the live blog for the whole shebang.

The Good:The official announcement of Animal Crossing: CityFolk looked impressive, with it’s Wiispeak communication system and “Animal Crossing on steroids” approach. Also announced was the shocker of the show – a Grand Theft Auto game for the DS, a very fun-looking Wii Sports sequel (Wii Sports: Resort), and a demo for the very fun (if simple)-looking Wii Music. The big N showed off a few decent-looking third party titles in Call of Duty: World At War, Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (all for Wii) and Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades and Spore: Creatures for the DS. We also got a look at the new Wii motion plus device, and Cammie Dunaway hinted at some very interesting DS functionality that has serious potential.

The Bad:What was with all the lame teasing?

Headed up by Sony CEO, Jack Tretton, Sony’ E3 2008 press conference (July 15, 2008) was an on-stage affair with plenty of monitors and montages.

The biggest news was that the company is moving most of its focus to the 80GB PS3 and dropping the price to $399.99. There was also plenty of talk about downloadable content (in terms of videos) through the PS Network on PS3 – starting tonight – that can be transfered to PSP.

Here’s a quick recap of the stuff and goodness that was Sony’s press conference that took place today courtesy of our Live Blog…

Bookmark this page and plan to press REFRESH a lot (either by hitting F5 or CTRL+R). We’re Live Bloggin’ Sony’s E3 press conference. It starts at 11:30 a.m. Pacific time (2:30 p.m. Eastern time), Tuesday, July 15, 2008.

While you are waiting, make sure you check out the rest of our E3 2008 coverage.

Click through, bookmark the page and plan to press REFRESH a lot. We’re Live Bloggin’ Nintendo’s E3 press conference. It starts at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time (Noon Eastern time), Tuesday, July 15, 2008.

While you are waiting, make sure you check out the rest of our E3 2008 coverage.

Microsoft had a medium intensity press event this year, at least that’s what I’m calling it. There were no insanely awkward moments like last year’s “Peter Moore sucks at Rock Band ” intro, but the event was full of game demos, trailers, and a couple of rather exciting reveals. For a full blow-by-blow of the event, check out the live blog from yesterday. Right here and now, I’m going to highlight the biggest announcements of the show.

Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Fall Out 3 and Resident Evil 5 playable, dated.The biggest Xbox 360 guns were out in full force at the show, complete with playable footage and even a very cool atomic age teaser from Fall Out 3. RE 5 will be out in March (on Friday the 13th, no less), Gears 2 and Fable 2 are due out this fall, and both were looking quite spiffy with new trailers and gameplay details to whet gamers’ appetites.