The Biggest Event In Video Game History

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (or e3) is poised to be the single biggest video game event in history.  For years, the e3 convention has been the largest attended, financed and all around fun event for the video game industry.  This year’s show (June 2 – 4) is on pace to be no different.  Even though e3 started restricting attendance in 2007 and has closed it off completely from the public, it still is the premiere event for every major video game company.  The event is being held at the los angles Convention center as seen below. Click for directions.
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In 2007 over 60,000 people attended and since restricting attendance to invite only are now down to only 5,000 in attendance.  The numbers are small, but the results are anything but that.  The expo has lost a little steam since restricting attendance, but they are on the brink of changing that dramatically this year.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime made big promises for last years event but very little of this actually happened.  When interview earlier he had this to say, “We’re hoping to do a much better job this year.” and “From Nintendo’s perspective we always go into E3 with a very high bar, wanting to satisfy not only the core fans but also ourselves,”

Sony has no intentions of being outdone by Nintendo.  This is why there have been rumors upon rumors swirling around the internet that Sony will be announcing a brand new motion sensing controller.  This new controller is supposed to be way more effective and accurate then Nintendo’s Wiimote controller.  This controller will use LED lights to better accuracy in the z field, something the Wii lacks.

The Tony Hawk franchise has been the leader in the skateboarding genre for years, but lately has been declining in sales.  This has to due with gamers feeling bored with doing the same thing every year.  Activsion has decided to rebuild the games from the ground up.  Tony Hawk said that authenticity is “the most important thing to me”.  Again rumors have been spreading for months that the new innovative change in this game is a motion sensing skateboard.  Hawk’s comments all but confirm these rumors.  With Kotaku reporting that Activision is set to make an announcement at e3 this seems like a very likely possibility.

A trailer has been leaked to online video sites (youtube) that apparently is for the upcoming game TRICO. This rumored game is a sequel to arguably on of the best RPG games ever made ICO. ICO was one of the original games released with the Playstation 2 (back in 2002) but very little has been heard of the series ever since.  Will Sony officially unveil the game at this year’s expo?

Despite all the positive news and speculation about these stories there are also some very important subtractions from this year’s event.  Blizzars, the company behind World of Warcraft and Starcraft, have declined an invitation to e3.  Fans of these series should not get to upset since Blizzard holds their own BlizzCon that is set to happen 4 months later

Capcom is also skipping this year’s event due the companies international travel restrictions due to the swine flu.  Senior director, Chris Kramer, said that Dead Rising 2 will be the companies only game that will not still be shown in some form.  Many of the company’s game will still be shown by other groups close to the company and that “Dead Rising 2 is the only game we won’t be able to showcase at E3, because it’s at an early stage of development and the team is not comfortable having anyone else demo the code.”

Atari also recently dropped out of the show.  This is not a big surprise and does not upset many in the gaming community.  Atari was only slated to release updated information on the upcoming titles Ghostbuster and Champions Online.  This is probably why they ended up dropping the expo from their calanders.

Now back to the upsides of the expo.  Despite announcing that Dead Rising 2 will not be shown from Capcom; the company conformed that Tatsunoko vs. Capcom will indeed be coming to the United States.  Gamers will need to wait until e3 to see a trailor for the actual game.

Big time announcements from companies are not the only thing that draws attendance and popularity to this event.  Geek Celebrity Steve Wiebe, will attempt to break the all-time high score in the original Donkey Kong game.  Steve gained popularity from the documentary “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”.  Steves high score obtained in the movie has since been beaten.  Steve will attempt to reclaim his crown by breaking the high score.  This game will also be shown nationally on G4TV.com.

So will this year’s e3 be the biggest event in video game history?  We will not know the answer to that until all of these rumors are either confirmed or shot down on June 2 – 4.  Senior Director of Communication of ESA, Dan Hewitt, said this year the goal was to bring back the “glamour, sizzle and excitement,”.