A look back at E3

Well basically, this year's E3 conference was much anticipated due to alot of reasons - some being 1) Rumours of Sony's PS3 concerning its hefty price and release date would be put to rest finally
2) Nintendo's Revolution would be unveiled, and later on, take a proper name.
And many other reasons that make E3 a great event that's looked forward to many people.

Well to start off, it's pretty obvious that Nintendo stole the show at this years event. Nintendo has a unique way of being 'different', and this year, being the black sheep of the family has certainly paid off for them. The Nintendo Revolution was named - Wii (pronounced Wee). What was unique about a console that one could make more than a million jokes about? It had motion sensing technology. No, not just the motion sensing whereby a controller new whether it was being moved down or up. We're talking the ability to use your Nintendo Wii-mote (the catchy name for the Wii controller) as a tennis racket. Now that is cool. So why did Nintendo dominate this year's event, compared to other years where it did 'ok' or came in second to other consoles?
It was all based on how the controller or rather the concept of the Wii changed the way people gamed. This time around Nintendo wasn't aiming at the average gamer, they decided to do something different as they always end up doing - They targetted the most important under-utilised resource of the gaming industry - Non gamers. With the release of their Wii console, Wii literally meaning 'We' or referring gamers as a collective, Nintendo made it clear that they were targetting everyone.

Enough about Nintendo's achievements, surely there had to be something great about Sony's announcements - but the truth is, people weren't satisfied. The PS3, which come's out on November 17 this year, didn't leave many people talking after E3. This is not only because of it's hefty price tag, but because of Sony's mixed messages. The 'boomerang' controller design (which struck me as dumb and odd) was scrapped to make way for not a new innovative design but the same of DualShock 2 controller. That is quite ironic because, since Sony lost a lawsuit to some company over the Force Feedback technology in their controllers, the PS3 controller does not have vibration in it. So basically, at this years E3 expo Sony lacked any form of innovation whatsoever, instead they thought it would be better to mimick a form of motion sensing found in the Wii. You won't be able to experience the immersive gameplay that can be achieved using a Wii-mote, since the PS3 controller senses only Yaw and Tilt.
Click here to read GameDaily's interview with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata
Click here to watch Sony's E3 2006 conference compared to what Sony promised in their 2005 E3 conference.

Of note, the loss of HDMI outputs (downgraded from 2 to only 1 on the premium console), ethernet ports (now only 1), and controller inputs (from 7 to 4).
What we are wondering is how much the system would have cost if the PlayStation 3 met 2005 specifications.

$599 - That's how much you will have to pay for a 'proper' PS3
$499 - That's how much you will have to pay for a not-so PS3 PS3

Playstation 3 System Features

Feature	20 GB System	60 GB System
Size of hard drive	20 GB	60 GB
Upgradable hard drive	Yes	Yes
Blu-ray drive	Yes	Yes
Wi-Fi connectivity	No	Yes
HDMI connection	No	Yes
Memory Stick reader	No	Yes

End of Part 1 -- (I'm going to have to split this entry into two posts)

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