And with this posting, my first official day at E3 2007 is done. It was a rough day; actually, all I did other than travel was attend Microsoft’s press briefing/conference.
I decided pre-E3 I wouldn’t bother going to the Big 3’s conferences since there’s no point in wasting my time covering what’s easily available online for free (and streaming), but since it was the only thing to do today (and since MS actually invited me and used my GamerTag in a pre-conference display) I decided to go.
I ended up sitting next to a group of Japanese businessmen in suits relatively close to the front. Imagine my surprise when I introduced myself and found out they were a few of the exec members at KOEI. Then imagine their surprise when I explained to them that I thought Dynasty Warriors was repetitive and boring at times. Now imagine my surprise when they agreed with me! "At least it keeps selling," I laughingly told my new Best Japanese Friend. "Haha! Yes!" he replied while taking a picture of the bigscreen with his camera.
Before the show started, I got to look at my gamertag in letters bigger than me; of course, no one cared about mine. They just cared about Major Nelson, and Gamer Andy, and all those other guys. Show ahnonamis love, you bastards!
With that thought, the show started. The Halo theme started playing, and it didn’t stop until the year 2015. But seriously, the five kids who played the Halo theme did a great job. If Peter hadn’t come out to introduce them, he could have told me they were from some professional orchestra and I would have believed him.
You all know what happened at the conference; hell, Billy listed the events quite nicely in the post or two before this. Here are a few of my random thoughts from the conference (which I wrote in pen on my hand and arm, as I left my notebook in the car [and no I didn’t write the entire things, just a word or two to remind me]). I’d love to do more and post a full story, but I’m exhausted, and I still have hundreds of images to poor over and email to the media guys before I go to sleep.
- Jeff Bell (the corporate marketing guy for Microsoft) sounds like Aaron Eckhart in Thank You For Smoking. Hell, he even looked like him at times. I’ve never seen such fake exuberation in my life.
- The highlight of the night was easily Peter Moore losing in Rock Band, being brought back, pausing the game on accident, and then pausing again one note away from the end of the song.
- Reggie Bush should handle any and all future Microsoft PR events. Not only was he a smartass ("I ain’t even lookin’!"), but he even snuck in a few jabs (Jeff: "I won’t look [at your play]!" Reggie: "I dunno, you Microsoft guys like to cheat").
- Jeff Bell also smiles like George W.
- The Disney announcement was big, but when were movies like Atlantis and The Emperor’s New Groove considered "timeless Disney classics"? This picture that I totally took on purpose sums up my feelings rather nicely
- Jeff: "HD content will be delivered worldwide, with distribution starting in August to Canada and Europe." Me to KOEI guy next to me: "Asia doesn’t count?" KOEI guy: "=("
- Shane Kim (corp VP and head of game studios) is the reason I realized there were giant scrolling teleprompters throughout the venue. He sounded like Frankenstein. "I. Love. PG.R4. And hate fire!" (guess which part I added)
- When you only see Jade through a blurry camera lens, you realize just how bad she is at doing her job.
- I have never heard as many people be silent in my life as I did when they unveiled the Scene-it controller and the new 360. Even the KOEI guys didn’t clap or cheer, and they clapped for the Bee Movie Video Game footage. Here’s a picture of the Scene-it controller if you missed it. The game comes with four of them, because the first three will run away from home due to your mocking laughter.
- Making people feel awkward is a passion of mine. After the RE5 trailer ended (I happened to be on the phone quietly telling someone a story to post, by the way), I said into the phone, "I hope you got that, because I want to pleasure myself to it later." The guy next to me (on the non-KOEI side) looked at me for the first time that night. He was there alone, so I think he understands.
- I took an extra one of those circle foam pad things they had us sit on. That’s my way of getting back at the man (who, by the way, offered free valet parking-too bad the guy who drove my car has bad taste in radio stations). Here’s a picture of it, and apparently my pants. Why they were on the bedstand we’ll never know.
That’s it for my random Microsoft conference thoughts. I’m now going to sit on a bed to let my ass recoup from sitting on a tiny piece of foam on cement for 2 and a half hours. In the morning, I’m off to a few hands-on demonstrations, a couple smaller press conferences (like I said, I’m not going to bother with Nintendo or Sony-no point), and then five hours of Age of Conan! I’ll update the journal throughout the day, though, so no worries.
