E3 renamed, rescheduled, and drastically resized.

[bluemicrobyte]

Read all about it:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6154953/index.html

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154961.html

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154982.html

Personally, I'm really going to miss those three days that came once a year where I could stockpile food and sit in front of a computer screen to watch streaming coverage of the event every minute of the day. I remember the suspense in the days building up to the Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft press conferences, wondering what they might unveil. But since they killed E3, time to move on =P

[sololop]

Wow. Not really much I can say, except, this. That sucks. One hotel room, postponed dates, etc.. remindes me of SC ghost.

[Aquarian]

Apparently, big game publishers had decided to pull their support of the event, possibly because E3 was just too expensive to justify the time, effort, and cost of sending out crews of staff to attend the event, prepare new demo versions of the games, and spend millions on swanky booths for the show floor

Oh, come on! It's only once a year and looking at what the big publishers earn, I'd say they are just being selfish.

[Nuts]

If you think about it, the actual visitors to the convention account for very little of the overall customer base. Most of us learn about E3 developments via the media. It actually makes sense to limit the event to media only. They will still reach 99% of their customer base with a fraction of the event costs.

[Modred]

E3 Media Festival...with a name like that, you'd almost expect it to be getting larger. You know, music concerts, movies, and so on. But having it in hotel conference rooms...that makes it seem more like just a regular sales presentation. Nothing really unique about it, as far as I can tell right now. Game execs and producers in a board room with the press, trying to make their game look good. Heck, the press can go to the game company's office and do the same.

[Ktan]

If you think about it, the actual visitors to the convention account for very little of the overall customer base. Most of us learn about E3 developments via the media. It actually makes sense to limit the event to media only. They will still reach 99% of their customer base with a fraction of the event costs.

Nuts is right. How many people who are gamers have actually ever been? For alot of people, it's a bit of a pipedream.

However, it's also a shame to see it go. It seemed like a bit of a fun knees up and I'd have loved to have gone in the future. Alas, maybe one day, it will return.

[Sikawtic]

WTF... one dream that can never happen.