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There's an odd sort of Kremlinology that surrounds the annual Electronic Entertainment Exposition, with one of the main topics of conversation among showgoers, industry watchers, and video game enthusiasts being the E3 show itself. Each year's show is compared and contrasted to previous editions, and hands are wrung over whether E3 has too many attendees, too few attendees, or should be earlier or later in the year. The bombastic displays built by companies such as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are analyzed for any hint of a corporate downturn, and the number of scantily clad "booth babes" is a litmus test for the overall financial health of the industry.

If the hallway buzz is any indication, this year's show was well-received, with most people we talked to pleased to see E3 return to its traditional large-scale format after two years of a stripped-down version held in a series of drab meeting rooms and hotel suites. With roughly 40,000 attendees, this is still a smaller show than the peak years, where it topped 60,000, so the public spaces of the Los Angeles Convention Center feel less claustrophobic than in the past.

This was a surprisingly heavy year for hardware announcements at E3, and much attention was focused on upcoming products such as the Natal motion-sensing camera from Microsoft, Nintendo's Wii Motion Plus add-on, and Sony's still-unnamed motion controller system, along with the revamped portable PSP Go. All were demonstrated at the show, to varying degrees of success--but the point that aging game consoles need some hardware upgrades to keep audiences interested and push new software sales was well-made.

We came away impressed with the same list of upcoming game titles we went into the show looking forward to, including Batman: Arkham Asylum, Heavy Rain, and Mafia II; we also found some titles that unexpectedly caught our eye and made an excellent impression in-person--such as Splinter Cell: Conviction, Borderlands, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.… Read more

Whether it's hardware, software, or vaporware, there's no shortage of intense hype for new products and technologies at E3. But beyond the breathless product demonstrations, the reality doesn't always live up to the promise (not that this is all that different from any other part of the tech industry). Even having gotten a close-up, in-person look at some of these big buzz-worthy introductions at E3, it's hard to separate fact from hype, although one thing is obvious: only a handful of these hardware developments are even close to actually being released.

Project Natal, the Xbox 360's motion-sensing camera add-on, certainly has potential, but the promo video for it Microsoft showed off was purely a work of science fiction. In it, a happy family enjoys multimedia content, chats with friends, and plays complex interactive games without a controller, just using their bodies. The actual playable demos were a few generations behind that, more reminiscent of the Sony Eye Toy accessory for the PS2--the main example was a simple game where players bat a ball back at the screen by swatting at the air, with just enough lag to be annoying. We're very excited about the potential of this new motion-sensing, face-and-voice-recognizing, camera add-on, but for now the gulf between the reality and prerendered video is sizable.

A much-hyped software package that uses the Project Natal hardware, Milo was presented as a virtual onscreen boy who could recognize you and carry on an intelligent conversation. The demo video was impressive, but obviously shot in a tightly controlled environment with clearly scripted responses. Talking to several people who got a chance to try out talking to Milo in person behind closed doors, the responses were uniformly disappointed, describing the supposedly realistic Milo similar to a Tamagotchi virtual pet, with only very basic interactivity. Milo was created by Peter Molyneux, a game designer infamous for over-promising and under-delivering, with ambitious but flawed projects such as Fable and Black & White. … Read more

What's the best way to get the word out about your upcoming video game? If you're displaying your wares at E3, it's a time-honored tradition to hire a few celebrities to, if not downright endorse it, then at least to stand near your product and mention it a few times.

We saw this at Microsoft's press conference, featuring Paul and Ringo, along with Steven Spielberg and Tony Hawk; and later at Ubisoft's press event, with guest appearances by James Cameron and Pele (yes, the soccer player).

Microsoft's evening press event, featuring The Beatles: Rock Band, plus playable demos of Halo: ODST and Left 4 Dead 2, continued the celebrity theme. We got a chance to play "Back in the USSR" and "Taxman," but the real excitement started when we left the stage and were replaced by the unlikely combo of Dhani Harrison and Christopher "McLovin" Mintz-Plasse. … Read more

Episode 34 of the Digital City, where we discuss our predictions for the E3 video game trade show. Note that there are two versions of the show available now, the traditional audio stream, and our exciting, new video version -- check out both below.

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Getting ready to hit Los Angeles and the Electronic Entertainment Expo for the 11th time, I was inspired to peek back at photos I had taken over the years at E3. Most of these are from the years 2002-2005 -- considered the heyday of the show's over-the-top displays.

From bikini-clad women to a life-size Katamari ball, we've seen plenty of unusual things at E3 -- this year's show will have to be pretty far out there to stand out.

After two lackluster years of tiny audiences and slashed budgets, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is trying to recapture some of its past luster--but it may be too little, too late. That's a shame, because E3, being held next week, is one of only a handful of trade shows the public actively follows, with legions of gamers, from hardcore to casual, eagerly tracking each day's new announcements.

After years of excessive budgets and outlandish displays, essentially turning the Los Angeles Convention Center into a futuristic minimetropolis, game companies retrenched in 2007, looking to display their wares in a more … Read more

The Guitar Hero franchise has traditionally seen flagship installments launch right around Halloween in the U.S., with Guitar Hero III and World Tour coming in about a week before and Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II about a week after. Such will not be the case with Guitar Hero 5, however.

Activision Blizzard has revealed through the game's official Web site that the latest four-piece rhythm game will take to the main stage on September 1, exactly one week before archrival The Beatles: Rock Band strums its opening tune on September 9.

Along with revealing a release date, … Read more

If friends and family don't make up a big enough audience for your at-home rock concerts, rumor has it you may get to parade your Guitar Hero skills before all of America one day. Asked about the future of the wildly popular Hero franchise, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick told the Hollywood Reporter "it might make for a good TV show or a good concert tour."

We don't know exactly what a Guitar Hero reality TV show would look like, but if it sticks to the standard reality format, it will probably be full of backstabbing, … Read more

Forget new consoles: if game publishers got their wish, we'd stick with the system we have and just buy endless peripherals. Activision's latest announcement in its ever-growing Hero series is DJ Hero, a new game focusing on the joys of being a turntable-spinning club god.

While the idea could be pretty fun--in fact, Konami already semi-explored it in Beatmania--the new turntable accessory, while pretty, is yet another plastic device to tuck under the television and get dusty.

Activision claims that a big part of DJ Hero is the live remixing of popular songs across genres, as would … Read more