In just 28 short days, I will be in the middle of E3 2006, the Electronics Entertainment Expo! (Actually, I’ll be there 27 days from now, but I forgot to post this yesterday.) For those of you who don’t know, E3 is to video games what the Super Bowl is to baseball (or soccer, or whatever that sport is). All of the game manufacturers come together and provide playable versions of their games coming out in the next year (or more).
It’s also the place where all the major console manufacturers announce their plans for the next year. This year is particularly significant because it’s the once-every-five-years event where all the new consoles are released (give or take a year). According to the venerable Wikipedia (which is only as reliable and accurate as the general population), this is the seventh generation of video game consoles, although it is the sixth by my count, as I start counting at the Atari 2600, which really started the video game market.
Let me step back a moment and recommend that everyone read about the Video Game Crash of 1984 (incorrectly cited by Wikipedia as the Video Game Crash of 1983). It is important that we study history; otherwise, we are doomed to repeat it. It was a crazy time to be a video game fan, to be sure. I vividly remember my favorite magazine, Electronic Games, changing its name to Electronic Fun (With Computers and Games), in order to distance itself from the dying console market. (I have no idea if the modern Electronic Gaming Monthly is in any way related to the original Electronic Games.)
The impact of the Crash was so great that I got out of console gaming, missing the NES era entirely. (I am only now experiencing the best games that I missed, thanks to the brilliant Game Boy Advance console and its healthy supply of retro games.) I returned in the middle of the 16-bit era, picking up a Sega Genesis during my late college years, about three years into its five-year life cycle. I remained behind with the next generation, and only got a PlayStation for Christmas in 1998, again, about three years after its release. The net effect of getting into that console so late is that there was already an established library of great games for me to choose from. My experience with the PlayStation was so monumentally life-changing that I picked up the PlayStation 2 at launch in October of 2000.
A few years later, I repeated my PlayStation experience of getting into a console late in the game, and picked up a Nintendo GameCube for the low low price of $99, which included four classic Legend of Zelda games: two from the NES era (which, as previously mentioned, I had bypassed) and two from the Nintendo 64 (which, again, I had missed altogether). In fact, one of those Nintendo 64 games, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, is widely considered to be the greatest video game of all time. I haven’t played it so I can’t comment, but my favorite video game of the modern era is somewhat different.
Which, in a convoluted way, brings us back to today. The Xbox 360 has already been released, so that’s old news. The new darlings for E3 2006 will be the PlayStation 3 and the wild card Nintendo Revolution. Though both were announced at E3 2005, this year is the first where the games will be playable (including, hopefully, Metal Gear Solid 4).
Will Sony maintain its place at the top of the console heap? After all, no company has maintained console superiority for two successive generations…at least, not until Sony came along. (Starting with the 2600, the progression has been Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Sony.) But have gamers become tired of just more of the same? Or will Nintendo pull gamer in with their new controller, which promises to change current gameplay completely? Nintendo has already stated that there is at least one more secret to the Nintendo controller that has yet to be revealed….
In any case, I will keep you posted as news leaks out over the next few weeks. Historically, many of the big news announcements have been during the Tuesday press conferences prior to the opening of the exhibit floor on Wednesday. I’ll provide a news update then, and nightly reports from the show floor. And, as with E3 2003 and 2004, I will be staying with Dave in his newly-Mac’ed guest room. As far as vacations go, it doesn’t get any better than that.
