The first full day of E3 has come and is gone. We ran out of time to publish our end-of-days for you then, but we still wanted to give you our thoughts this morning.
Dean: After arising bright and early, we took our short bus ride to the Civic Auditorium for the Nintendo press conference. It was unusually quiet for a Nintendo event. At 8:00 a.m. we were shuffled in for breakfast and coffee. It finally started to fill up closer to 9 a.m. (the conference start) and then the show began.
This was a very clear indication of things to come, as the Sony press conference was very small as well. Still held in their Culver City studios, it looked like they could only seat about 500 people. Realizing now that 500 people is approximately 1/6th of the entire show population, it kind of makes sense.
I still maintain that this E3 is better than years previous, just for the fact that it is much quieter and easier to conduct business - but unfortunately, the amount of travel time is quickly changing that view.
We had a THQ meeting that we had to cut short in order to run to our Nintendo interview on time, which is something that shouldn't have to happen in an apparently easier event to cover.
The rest of the day was spent at Barker Hangar, which was almost like a miniature version of the old E3. It was also quiet, which was good, because we could play more games in two hours than we ever could in a day at the old shows.
Day one was fun, and it was our busiest day of the show, the rest should be much more managable.
Brandon: Dean is pretty much on the money when it comes to the actual proceedings. I very much appreciated the lack of lines at Barker Hanger as well.
But I can't shake that feeling that something's just missing, whether it's the scope or the big announcements or the chance of finding some quaint little thing tucked away in a corner of Kentia Hall. On the other more sensible hand I actually got to play games this year and there's even a chance I'll get to play some more!
Truly the only thing that could have made this whole deal better is if the meetings and show-floor could have been closer together. The travel and bus rides and all that is absolutely killer, and while the E3 organizers have done a good job by offering shuttles, they don't run frequently enough or to enough places to really prevent extended walks or the use of city transit.
Jury's still out, but it's definitely a mixed bag.
Matt: I hate busses.
What did I like? Wii Fit was pretty interesting. There are a bunch of neat little games you can play with it, beyond the soccer-ball head-butting one they showed at the conference; I saw a ski-jumping game being demonstrated at Barker.
Barker was actually a pleasant surprise; I'd got the vibe it was going to be a bunch of video loops with PR-types standing around. Nearly everything there is actually playable, and the lines are so much better than they ever were at the LACC.
I'm looking forward to today with perhaps a slight sense of trepidation. We'll see how it all pans out in the end.
Dean: After arising bright and early, we took our short bus ride to the Civic Auditorium for the Nintendo press conference. It was unusually quiet for a Nintendo event. At 8:00 a.m. we were shuffled in for breakfast and coffee. It finally started to fill up closer to 9 a.m. (the conference start) and then the show began.
This was a very clear indication of things to come, as the Sony press conference was very small as well. Still held in their Culver City studios, it looked like they could only seat about 500 people. Realizing now that 500 people is approximately 1/6th of the entire show population, it kind of makes sense.
I still maintain that this E3 is better than years previous, just for the fact that it is much quieter and easier to conduct business - but unfortunately, the amount of travel time is quickly changing that view.
We had a THQ meeting that we had to cut short in order to run to our Nintendo interview on time, which is something that shouldn't have to happen in an apparently easier event to cover.
The rest of the day was spent at Barker Hangar, which was almost like a miniature version of the old E3. It was also quiet, which was good, because we could play more games in two hours than we ever could in a day at the old shows.
Day one was fun, and it was our busiest day of the show, the rest should be much more managable.
Brandon: Dean is pretty much on the money when it comes to the actual proceedings. I very much appreciated the lack of lines at Barker Hanger as well.
But I can't shake that feeling that something's just missing, whether it's the scope or the big announcements or the chance of finding some quaint little thing tucked away in a corner of Kentia Hall. On the other more sensible hand I actually got to play games this year and there's even a chance I'll get to play some more!
Truly the only thing that could have made this whole deal better is if the meetings and show-floor could have been closer together. The travel and bus rides and all that is absolutely killer, and while the E3 organizers have done a good job by offering shuttles, they don't run frequently enough or to enough places to really prevent extended walks or the use of city transit.
Jury's still out, but it's definitely a mixed bag.
Matt: I hate busses.
What did I like? Wii Fit was pretty interesting. There are a bunch of neat little games you can play with it, beyond the soccer-ball head-butting one they showed at the conference; I saw a ski-jumping game being demonstrated at Barker.
Barker was actually a pleasant surprise; I'd got the vibe it was going to be a bunch of video loops with PR-types standing around. Nearly everything there is actually playable, and the lines are so much better than they ever were at the LACC.
I'm looking forward to today with perhaps a slight sense of trepidation. We'll see how it all pans out in the end.