E3 Expo Summary
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While the last few E3s have been rather bland, this year was fabulous. This is mainly because of Gamecube and Xbox. We've been waiting for a long time to get information on Xbox games, and an even longer time for any Gamecube information whatsoever. In pre-show conferences held on Wednesday May 16, both Nintendo and Microsoft delivered in spades.
Nintendo showed off a reel of titles, and officially confirmed a number of games. Hot among the list are Luigi's Mansion, which features Mario's brother Luigi, who is trying to cleanse his new home of ghosts using only a vacuum cleaner. Other highlights were Eternal Darkness, which looks to be the creepiest game ever, and Dinosaur Planet, featuring the characters from Star Fox. Both these titles began life as Nintendo 64 games, but moved over onto Nintendo's new baby.
Unfortunately, that was it for Nintendo. While the pre-show conference was incredible, and generated a lot of hype and anticipation, Nintendo news dropped to nearly zero for the rest of the show. Few third-party announcements were made, and those announcements that were made seemed like afterthoughts, attached to the end of a Playstation2 or Xbox announcement. Nintendo did try to make it up by announcing the price and release date of the Gamecube the day after E3 ended. You can get your mitts on one November 5, for the price of US$199. Not too shabby.
That November 5 date is interesting, because it's just three days prior to November 8. And why is that significant? Well, November 8 just happens to be the launch date of the Xbox, which will retail for a price of US$299. It's going to be quite the week to watch, because the launch of two competing consoles mere days from each other is something that has never been seen before. Will gamers grab up the cheaper Gamecube right away? Or will they pass on it, choosing to wait just three more days for the much more powerful, but much more expensive Xbox?
Unlike Nintendo, Microsoft announced the price and launch date of it's baby on Wednesday, and then followed up with a strong series of game announcements, third parties showings, and rumors over the next three days. They did a much better job than Nintendo of maintaining a constant presence throughout the show. The high-point of Microsoft's run was the demonstration of Project EGO, a new game from one of Peter Molyneaux's companies.
