This week, I'm in Los Angeles, California. This is the third post of the trip - see yesterday's post here. I'm at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), a big trade show for the gaming industry each year.
I'll continue to show you some of the craziness from the show. As I noted yesterday, the game publishers spend millions of dollars to promote their games. The attendees of this show are primarily press, retail buyers, and folks inside the industry. It's not open to the public. Each publisher tries to make a good impression...and create some "buzz" for their products, so the press will help promote those games to the vast game-buying public.
We finished near the Disney booth yesterday. I'll continue with the tour. I stopped by the Namco booth, just in time to witness Snoop Dogg making his way to a stage to help promote a fighting game called Tekken. He's still quite popular, but it was uncomfortable to watch the Namco executives try to use anything resembling street slang, in introducing Snoop:
Nearby, I saw a display for a game that made me stop and think - Closet Wars. It's obviously aimed at women...but I wonder if any women above the age of 13 would actually play this??
Sorry for the fuzzy picture...I was in a hurry
For the sports fans, there were plenty of games to salivate over. Here's the latest version of the best basketball game on the market:
The largest publisher in the world is Activision - with over $4 billion in revenue each year. Yup, that's a lot of dollars. They publish the Call of Duty game, if you're award of that game's success. Their booth was also large:
One of the successful franchises for Activision is called Skylanders. It's a game that also includes toys that you can buy at retail. The toys unlock characters and features in the game via an attached device. It's a brilliant ploy - that generates quite a bit of revenue on the sales of the toys. The next time you're in Target or Wal-Mart, you'll see what I'm talking about. They announced a new series of characters with a colorful booth:
The Nintendo booth was large and busy...as usual. The booth itself is about 40,000 square feet of space, and is always jam-packed.
This year, Nintendo is showing off their new game system. It's called Wii U. This device is the next-generation from Nintendo (my company actually provides the graphics chips for this system). The controller actually looks like a combination of a regular control pad and an iPad. Made of plastic, it has a screen that displays game information, while you're playing your game on the TV. It also includes a camera and microphone. I'm skeptical of all the uses envisioned for this crazy controller.
Nintendo is working on several games to showcase the technology. Here are some videos of games that will have action on the main TV screen, with the opportunity to interact with the small screen.
If you remember the old Wii Fit, that device will work with the new Wii U Fit - an update to the exercise game:
Finally, the best-selling franchise Just Dance will release another sequel - Just Dance 4. I caught a quick video of show attendees having a fun time in front of a crowd with the game:
Next door, Sony had their usual gargantuan booth. They didn't have a new system to announce, but showed all-new games for the Playstation 3.
This "little" guy is from a Sony game called Little Big Planet - it's a truly creative game where you basically build the world around you. I think it's great for kids...really stimulates some creative thinking.
Wrapping up the big three game system makers, was Microsoft. They focused on new games for the Xbox 360, and the Kinect (allowing you to move your body to control on-screen characters).
I especially like the new Avengers games, where you can move around as one of several superheroes. In this video clip, you see someone playing as the Hulk. G-Man will love this:
They have a new version of Dance Central, one of the popular dance-rhythm games. Yet another way for me to make a fool of myself in front of other people at home. Fortunately, others were willing to do the job at E3:
I think that will do it for now. I will have one last post about E3 - including the making of a public riot in downtown LA ; )
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