LOS ANGELES--Once again it's that time: big hype for giant press conferences by the video game industry's biggest names.
In this case, we're talking Microsoft, and its annual Xbox 360 bacchanalia.
Here at E3, which kicks off unofficially Monday morning, it's craziness, excitement and anticipation rolled into one, even though this event is scaled down considerably from the last time it was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center two years ago.
The doors opened at 9:30 a.m., but because everyone coming into the press conference had to have a special "passport" with a bar code, the line to get in snaked oddly back from the doors to the exhibit hall, somewhat akin to the queues at Disneyland. It felt inefficient and unnecessary. But I suppose Microsoft wants to be sure that no one who's not supposed to be in the hall gets in. The upshot is that the scanning of the bar codes on people's passports was very slow.
And while this is the new-style E3, which is no longer the huge, massive, chaotic free-for-all it was through 2006, there are still some elements of the old event.
For example, while E3 in 2006 officially banned "booth babes," the scantily clad women who stand around looking pretty and attracting all the male gamers, Microsoft had greeters throughout the hall who were clearly meant to play something of that same role. To be sure, they weren't dressed in skin-tight, skimpy outfits, but they were universally thin and pretty and it was hard to see that they were there for any other reason than eye-candy to keep the geeks in line happy while they waited for seemingly ever to get in.
In this case, we're talking Microsoft, and its annual Xbox 360 bacchanalia.
Here at E3, which kicks off unofficially Monday morning, it's craziness, excitement and anticipation rolled into one, even though this event is scaled down considerably from the last time it was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center two years ago.
The doors opened at 9:30 a.m., but because everyone coming into the press conference had to have a special "passport" with a bar code, the line to get in snaked oddly back from the doors to the exhibit hall, somewhat akin to the queues at Disneyland. It felt inefficient and unnecessary. But I suppose Microsoft wants to be sure that no one who's not supposed to be in the hall gets in. The upshot is that the scanning of the bar codes on people's passports was very slow.
And while this is the new-style E3, which is no longer the huge, massive, chaotic free-for-all it was through 2006, there are still some elements of the old event.
For example, while E3 in 2006 officially banned "booth babes," the scantily clad women who stand around looking pretty and attracting all the male gamers, Microsoft had greeters throughout the hall who were clearly meant to play something of that same role. To be sure, they weren't dressed in skin-tight, skimpy outfits, but they were universally thin and pretty and it was hard to see that they were there for any other reason than eye-candy to keep the geeks in line happy while they waited for seemingly ever to get in.
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Article courtesy news.cnet.com
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