E3: A History So Far.. (Lots of text)

E3: A history so far...

Source: UGO.com


In the early days, there was CES. The International Consumer Electronics Show is held every year in lovely Las Vegas, and manufacturers from all over the world flock to Sin City each January to hawk their newest wares. While CES is devoted to technology from all over the spectrum - if it plugs into a wall, it's there - the show found itself being slowly and steadily overtaken in the early 1990s as game software became a bigger and bigger piece of America's entertainment pie. In 1995, the Interactive Digital Software Association, a consortium representing the major names in the video game field, decided to split from the yearly CES presentations to found an entirely new conference - the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3. Bringing all of the big names in gaming together under one tent, the Los Angeles-based convention quickly became the must-attend event for anybody involved in the industry. Earth-shattering press conferences, mind-blowing demos and liver-destroying parties quickly became the order of the day, and more and more people tried to attend each year, despite the event being ostensibly restricted to industry pros and journos. As the rise of Internet-based gaming news sites dominated the late 90s, any schmoe with a Geocities page and a dream could get a press pass, resulting in the convention hall getting more and more crowded every year, with lines to play the hottest games stretching out for hours. Obviously, something needed to be done, and in 2006 the organizers announced that the convention would be scaled down drastically, eliminating the multi-million dollar displays and booth babes in favor of a more information-oriented show with a deeply reduced guest list. 2008 is the second year under this new model, and as we gear up for the show we decided to take a trip back over the last 14 years of E3 to see what was hot, what was not, and what game captured the people's attention for each year.


E3 1995

In 1995, the Electronic Entertainment Expo spun off from CES to stand on its own two feet. Even before the show floor opened, the big guns were already making news - the Sega Saturn and the PlayStation were both nearing release. The big news from Sega was that the Saturn was already in stores - the company broke its own street date with select retailers to get the system in people's hands early. Sony retaliated by releasing a final retail price that was $100 less than the Saturn. And the next wave of the great console wars had officially begun. Nintendo, on the other hand, announced that their next console would come out... next year. And then they threw a huge party! Unfortunately, all they had at the show was the SNES and the Virtual Boy, both of which were looking pretty dated, even with games like Donkey Kong Country 2 and Killer Instinct. Even worse off was Atari, whose Jaguar console was already regarded to be dead in the water. Sony, however, did it up right, debuting the PlayStation and first-wave games like Tekken and Ridge Racer. The company spent over $4 million on their inaugural E3 booth, and it paid off in spades.

Game of the Show: Out of all of the PlayStation's launch titles, it was Ridge Racer that really showed what the little grey box had to offer. Whereas previous 3D racing games had been flat-shaded polygons zooming around empty toybox environments, Ridge Racer boasted cars that looked like the real thing, and fully 3D environments boasting multiple tracks, shortcuts, and up to 11 other competitors. Although Konami's series eventually lagged behind Gran Turismo and Forza as the console wars went on, at the time it was a racing revelation.


E3 1996

The sophomore effort for E3 showed a much changed console landscape in just twelve months. The launch of the Saturn, which was a much-ballyhooed event, fizzled out with onle a few hundred thousand consoles sold. The Virtual Boy bombed even harder, and the eyestrain-inducing portable was quickly taken off the market. But Sony, new to the video game business, was building up steam following a very successful launch. The PlayStation brought 3D gaming to consoles at an affordable price, and the two-year slump that had seized the industry was showing signs of lifting. Sony was now the trendsetter, and with this year's announcement that the PlayStation would be seeing a $100 price drop to only $199, they set the market expectations - by the end of the show, both Nintendo and Sega had announced that they would follow suit. Sega also debuted its NetLink modem, a $200 peripheral that would let gamers play online, as well as Virtua Fighter 2 and NiGHTS. Nintendo brought out the Game Boy Pocket, a lighter, slicker version of the classic black & green handheld. Microsoft, recognizing that the games market share was quickly shifting away from PCs, debuted a new games initiative to try to push developers back towards the Windows platform.

Game of the Show: Without a doubt, Super Mario 64. When Ken Lobb demonstrated the analog control on the Nintendo 64's joypad by making a fully 3D version of our favorite plumber run and jump around the castle, the crowd erupted - it was much easier to understand next-generation gaming when applied to a classic franchise. The big N's policy of bringing Super NES classics to the new platform with a 3D upgrade also included Pilotwings 64 and Kirby, and the froth for the new system was reaching dangerous levels.


E3 1997

The show moved to Atlanta for its third year, away from the software hotbed of Silicon Valley, and by 1997 it was already established as the must-go event for anybody involved in the industry. Unlike the first two years, which saw Nintendo as the big dog in the room, the unprecedented success of the PlayStation meant that Sony was suddenly on the top of the console heap. The announcement that long-time Nintendo partner Squaresoft would bring the next installment of the Final Fantasy franchise to Sony was met with shock and awe. The franchise model also started to come into play, with real-life Lara Croft Rhona Mitra promoting Tomb Raider II, quickly becoming one of gaming's biggest hits. Nintendo faced some derision for the absence of the announced 64DD disk system, but won the faithful back with Star Fox 64, the Rumble Pak adding vibration to Fox's space duels. Sega, on the other hand, was limping to a slow death, with the Saturn getting even more price cuts and third-party developers fleeing the system in droves. 1997 did see the reveal of Panzer Dragoon Saga, one of the best role-playing games of all time, but by then it was far too late.

Game of the Show: Completely out of left field, Japanese developer Konami announced that they would be updating a dimly-remembered NES title in a brand new sequel for the PlayStation. When they showed a non-playable demo on a few small screens at their booth, traffic ground to a halt. Everyone wanted to know what it was, when it would be playable, and where it came from. That game was Metal Gear Solid, and it would become one of the system-selling titles for Sony, mixing tactical espionage action with a dense, gripping storyline.


E3 1998


Attendance was over 70,000 and the money was flowing freely. Parties were getting more and more insane, with bands like the Foo Fighters hired to play Sony's shindig. Sega, still smarting from the market failure of the Saturn, played things a little closer to the vest with the first unveiling of the Dreamcast - demos were primarily given behind closed doors to journalists who signed a gag order, but they all came out raving at the incredible quality of the graphics the plucky little system produced. However, Sega's public presence was nothing to rave about. Nintendo wasn't doing much better - despite Rare showing a trifecta of titles, and the debut of the Game Boy Color, the PlayStation was still winning the home audience. One game that caused a little bit of buzz was the monster-raising RPG Pokemon, already a smash hit in Japan. Sony was still on top of the world, again previewing the game that would turn into the system's killer app and launch RPGs into the popular consciousness, Square's Final Fantasy VII, alongside Silent Hill. On the PC front, 3D Realms announced the very promising-looking Duke Nukem Forever.

Game of the Show: Just as Nintendo had ruled the roost two years ago with the 3D reinvention that was Super Mario 64, they did the same in '98 with another classic franchise brought into the future: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. Link's first 64-bit adventure wowed crowds at E3 and was promoted as "the biggest game release in history." Zelda's move into a 3D space reinvigorated the series, introducing new gameplay mechanics like context-sensitive actions and Z-targeting to the third-person action landscape. The game sold 2.5 million copies in just over a month when it was released later that year, and received perfect scores from virtually every gaming publication.

E3 1999

Back in Los Angeles, the buzzword for E3 1999 was "next-generation." The Sega Dreamcast had already launched in Japan and was set to hit the States on September 9th, in one of the most memorable console launches in history. The company had an unprecedented forty-three titles on display, making their booth one of the most packed at the show. Sony had also been making rumblings about their next-generation PlayStation, with a giant silver pyramid inset with monitors showing PS2 tech demos. The last generation was well-represented, with Gran Turismo 2, Wipeout 3 and the very first Tony Hawk's Pro Skater drawing sizable lines. And the day before the show opened, Nintendo announced partnerships with IBM and Panasonic to provide hardware for their upcoming console, code-named "Dolphin." They also rode the tsunami wave of Pokemon, giving Pikachu and his pals their own section of the booth. The industry was fully recovered from the slump and growing into the dominant force that we know and love today, and everybody wanted to cash in. On the PC front, the id Software split was in full effect, with John Romero pimping Daikatana and John Carmack talking Quake III. We all know how those turned out.

Game of the Show: The Dreamcast was blowing doors off left and right, but the one game that showed the console's muscle was Soul Calibur. In a ballsy move, Sega had the console version running right next to the game in an arcade cabinet, showing the world that for the first time ever a home game actually looked better than its arcade counterpart. Before Yoda or Spawn ever set foot in a ring, this game was one of the most talked-about fighters ever, introducing 8-way free running and a combat system that both masters and noobs could agree on.


E3 2000

The big news this year was the PlayStation 2 and what it could do. As Sony touted the "Emotion Engine" with bizarre old man facial animations, Konami was once again drawing huge crowds with the next-generation Metal Gear Solid 2. In what was promised was gameplay footage, realistic rain pattered down on an aircraft carrier, gunfire broke dozens of bottles individually, and the assembled gamers wet their pants in anticipation. Sega was still strong in the United States with the Dreamcast, showing innovative games like Samba De Amigo as well as pushing the console's internal modem, which let players team up in games like Phantasy Star Online.With all the hardware churn, it was amazing but not surprising that Nintendo's little handheld that could, the Game Boy, was still a viable platform. At the show, they announced that the system had just sold its 100,000,000th unit, which remains a hardware record to this day. In terms of games, the Nintendo 64 was showing its age, but still had some juice left in the form of Conker's Bad Fur Day. This was also the year that Gathering of Developers, the loose consortium of coders, made its first rebellious splash, choosing to completely eschew the show floor in favor of a ring of trailers in a parking lot across the street. The GOD parties would set the standard for E3 debauchery for years to come.

Game of the Show: Seaman. Although this incredibly weird game didn't do so well here in the States, it remains the single best-selling title ever released on the Dreamcast in Japan and perfectly epitomized the bizarre innovation that Sega was pushing out trying to keep the Dreamcast afloat. Using a packed-in microphone peripheral, players raised a man-faced fish and submitted to bizarre probing questions, all while the soothing voice of Leonard Nimoy narrated.


E3 2001

With Sega the first casualty of the next-gen wars, the die was cast for Nintendo to make a comeback as well with some new hardware. Before the show, they held their usual press conference to demo some GameCube games, including Rogue Leader and Luigi's Mansion, which looked amazing - but with the system still in development, nobody was competing with Sony for actual dollars yet. Not even Microsoft, who had also announced their intentions to get into the console biz with the Xbox. Closed-door demos of the new console didn't inspire much confidence in Bill Gates's crew being able to make a dent in the increasingly crowded market. However, their first E3 wasn't the success that they had hoped for - an early-morning press conference was sabotaged by a late-night Sony party the evening before, and many of their release plans were curious at best. Even worse, the demo Xbox units performed poorly, with several giving out during the show. Attendees were still impressed by the system's high-end graphics in games such as Project Gotham Racing and a new Oddworld title. Remember Oddworld? Those were some damn good games.

Game of the Show: Grand Theft Auto III. Well, honestly, this wasn't really the game of the show. Rockstar announced it, along with a few other titles, but nobody cared much. People were still agog over Devil May Cry, which combined fast action with Resident Evil atmosphere, as well as the extremely impressive first-wave of GameCube titles. Hell, even Rockstar's other new IP, State of Emergency, got more attention than GTA 3. And we all know what happened next. GTA would become a huge hit and change the way action games were designed forever. State of Emergency - well, you could sure decapitate a lot of people in that game.


E3 2002

Bloated with hubris over their continued dominance, Sony announced "The console wars are over" in their 2002 press conference. With the Xbox still struggling to find an audience amid disappointing launch titles and the GameCube falling prey to the Nintendo curse of first-party excellence and third-party mediocrity, it would have been foolish to disagree. Sony had shipped 30 million PS2s worldwide, and software was also banging, with the new Network Adaptor promising online multiplayer with a host of upcoming games. In addition, the announcement that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was a PS2 exclusive further enforced that position. Microsoft struck back by announcing Xbox Live, which would stumble a bit before establishing itself as the market leader and completely re-inventing how consoles would work online. They also showed some system-defining games like Ninja Gaiden and Project Ego (which would be renamed Fable). Nintendo, although firmly in the third-place position when it came to market share, revealed an extremely strong software lineup for 2002, including Super Mario Sunshine and Metroid Prime.

Game of the Show: Doom 3. In hindsight, the game turned out to be a disappointment, abandoning much of what made the original Doom games fun in favor of a watered-down survival horror experience, but when word got out that Activision was showing the never-before-seen game, there was a veritable stampede to the booth, and nobody left disappointed. Programming genius John Carmack had produced a game engine so advanced that it left spectators breathless, with incredible real-time lighting and beautifully rendered enemies. While PC gaming had been increasingly marginalized in recent years, Doom 3 brought sexy back and showed something that current-gen consoles could only dream of doing. Unfortunately, the game wasn't released until August of 2004.

E3 2003

The buzzword for games this year seemed to be "maneuverability," with Spider-Man 2 showing the web-slinger traversing a huge sandbox NYC. Ubisoft revived the Prince of Persia franchise with a kung-fu wall-running Prince. And Sony took the concept to a whole new level with its shocking announcement of the PlayStation Portable, a new system designed to go head-to-head with Nintendo's aging Game Boy Advance. In general, the big N had a pretty awful year in 2003. With Sony and Microsoft heading full-bore into the future of online gaming, Nintendo instead chose to focus on "connectivity," which amounted to a handful of GBA games that interfaced with the GameCube. This decision haunts Nintendo's poorly-conceived online strategy to this day. However, there was an even bigger loser that year - phone manufacturer Nokia also debuted a handheld system at the show, the legendary failure known as the N-Gage. In a laughable display, the company's executives showed awful, grainy in-game video and then an underpaid model took off her shirt to reveal the system's price written in Sharpie on her belly - $299. That was only about $290 more than we'd pay.

Game of the Show: For the second year in a row, a PC title won all of the buzz coming out of E3, with the first look at Valve Software's landmark Half-Life 2 blowing everybody who saw it away. Where Doom 3 had been all about dark, cramped corridors and lurking monsters, Half-Life 2, running on Valve's new Source engine, was vast, open vistas, realistic physics and detailed, emotive characters. The original Half-Life had shown that a well-told story can make a good game great, and the writers at Valve pushed Gordon Freeman's tale even farther in the sequel. But what really had people buzzing was the physics - for the first time, you felt like you could interact with a vibrant, real-seeming world, and the gravity gun hijinks that followed would change first-person shooters forever.


E3 2004

After the shocking announcement of the PlayStation Portable at the 2003 show, a little wind was taken out of Sony's sails when the unit wasn't even playable a year later. However, Nintendo used that year to rebound and strengthen its iron grip on the handheld market with the introduction of a quirky little box called the DS. With two screens, a microphone, and touch-sensitive input, the DS baffled everybody who saw it - until they got their hands on the machine, at which point they were converts. Most attendees agreed that the Big N had the best show in '04, with games like New Super Mario Brothers, Animal Crossing and cult hit Killer 7 all looking good. Sony didn't do too badly, with the debut of Final Fantasy XII on the PS2 charting a new course for the series, as well as teasers for Metal Gear Solid 3. And the Xbox, of course, had a little game called Halo 2. It was a year for sequels over new innovations, but when the sequels were this good, nobody was complaining.

Game of the Show: There was a bounty of riches to be had in 2004, as software developers were firing on all cylinders. The early days of hardware acclimation were past, and games were finally using all that the next-gen consoles had to offer. In a field that included God of War, GTA: San Andreas and The Sims 2, not to mention what would become The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the game that would change the landscape forever was actually a PC title - Blizzard's risky foray into the massively multiplayer online space with World of Warcraft. With over 10 million subscribers as of 2008, the game quickly grew to dominate the marketplace, establishing Blizzard as one of the big guns in PC gaming.


E3 2005

Sony and Microsoft both stepped forward hard with lots of details about the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. However, it was the PS3 that won the show this year - in part because Microsoft took a little wind out of their own sails by debuting the Xbox 360 in an MTV special the week before. Nintendo, on the other hand, kept close to the vest with a scant few leaks about its forthcoming console, at that point code-named "Revolution." The tide was turning - all three major hardware powers were set to release their next-gen boxes at around the same time, and the ever-shifting battle for supremacy was about to enter a new phase. Who would come out the victor - the conservative but well-polished Xbox 360, the hyper-advanced but difficult to develop for PlayStation 3, or the still-mysterious Revolution? In terms of games, Nintendo showed off The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess, at that time still slated to be a Gamecube title, and the return to a more mature Link elated fans. We also saw Dragon Quest VIII take a bow on the PS2, and there was a lot of buzz about the now-cancelled StarCraft: Ghost, a third-person action game set in Blizzard's sci-fi universe. On the Xbox 360 side, Gears of War blew away everybody who played it.

Game of the Show: Sims mastermind Will Wright, one of the most successful game designers of the last century, showed off a game in development so new and different that it would set the press salivating for years. With the first glimpses of Spore, the mind-boggling procedurally generated life simulator Wright was creating with EA, whole new worlds of play opened up. Gamers were tasked from raising microcellular life-forms to evolving all the way up to space travel, with each step dynamically generated from their choices. As of 2008, the game still hasn't hit shelves, but we're sure it'll be worth the wait.


E3 2006

Two consoles made public debuts at E3 2006, but the reaction couldn't have been more different. After last year's tight-lipped announcements, Nintendo trotted out the Wii to an incredible outburst of joy. The unique little console with the crazy input device took the audience by storm, and the buzz just grew from there. Sony's announcement that the PS3 would also have motion control features didn't go so well, as the hardware monolith was accused of copycat tactics. Lines were about a half an hour long to get hands-on with the PS3, compared to nearly five hours for the Wii. Microsoft stayed strong, holding the course with more Xbox Live features as well as showing off Halo 3 and a little game called Gears of War. The big announcement, however, didn't come from any of the serious names in the industry, but rather from the people behind E3 itself. Spurred by massively spiraling booth costs and exponentially increasing attendance, the ESA announced that the show would change drastically. Instead of a massive, sprawling trade-show atmosphere, E3 would now consist of tightly-controlled press events, with invitations severely restricted to only selected journalists. Gone were the multi-million-dollar booths and over-the-top glitz, replaced by info-dumps on the latest and greatest.

Game of the Show: With Nintendo pwning the competition with the perfectly-handled Wii reveal, Super Mario Galaxy was the star of the show, just like Super Mario 64 was a decade ago. The next-generation Mario game had been in development since late 2004, growing out of the long-rumored Super Mario 128 project. The gravity-bending platform adventure was a huge success, quickly becoming the best-selling game on the Wii worldwide after its release in November of 2007. Recently, Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that a sequel is in development, featuring several powers and suits that didn't make it into the first game.

E3 2007

The first year in the new format may have reduced the teeming crowds, but it didn't reduce the excitement. After the blockbuster launch of the Wii made "casual gaming" the new buzzword, Miyamoto and crew trotted out a slew of new peripherals for the little white box, including the Wii Fit balance board. The hardcore scoffed, but the strategy paid off. Sony was suffering their usual post-launch blues, as the first wave of PS3 software was judged less than impressive. They attempted a rebound with new trailers for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Gran Turismo 5, as well as playable demos for Heavenly Sword and Ratchet & Clank Future. They also announced price cuts in an effort to phase out the gimped 60GB PS3. Microsoft showed a new Halo 3 trailer and demoed Bioshock and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. On the whole, the games shown at this year's show were destined to be huge successes, and the new focus of the event led to more quality software being shown, at the expense of the wide-ranging wares offered by Kentia Hall companies in years gone by. It remains to be seen how this trade-off will affect the industry as a whole.

Game of the Show: 2007 was a damn good year for first-person shooters, as the consoles finally had the muscle to compete with high-end PC rigs, so it's no surprise that Bioshock was the most talked-about game of the show. It had stiff competition from Valve's value-packed Orange Box but Irrational's undersea Ayn Rand adventure showed the form evolving to an entirely new level of storytelling. There were really no losers at E3 2007, though, as one of the best spreads of top-shelf gaming awaited every attendee, no matter what their platform allegiance.


E3 2008

E3 returnted to the LA Convention Center in 2008, but it was definitely a shadow of its former self. Only taking up a small portion of the entire convention center (with the rest taken up by a textile convention), it was a much smaller show than years past, feeling more like business than fun...which was both good and bad.

Game of the Show: Fallout 3 was definitely the pick of the litter last year, offering a glimpse at the wide open gameplay and killer visuals that the end result would dish out. It left us anxiously awaiting its release more than any other game that the show.

E3 2009

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You're right, a hell of a lot of text, but good reading.

It's amazing how so much and how such trastic changes have happened in such a short space of time. Feels like so much longer.

Best E3 ever

Rik wrote:[youtube][/youtube]

Best E3 ever

That conference had so many lol moments

Thanks for the memory's Rik