On Friday the 17th of November the expo opened at 2PM. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all presented keynote speeches on their respective consoles. Microsoft announced that the HD DVD drive would be available in early 2007 and will retail for $249.95 AUD and come bundled with a free universal media remote and Peter Jackson's King Kong on HD DVD. Nintendo preferred to demonstrate the capabilities of the Wii and on a stage demonstration showcased exactly what the Wii was capable of. Sony presented their speech with three PlayStation 3's on stage. Everything that they used (photos and videos) was streamed from one of the consoles, which was really very clever.
PALGN's ever so popular booth.
After the keynote speeches came the industry panel, which featured David McLean of Microsoft, Rose Lappin of Nintendo and Michael Ephraim of Sony. There were quite a few interesting questions asked, such as how important Australia was as a market and Sony's view on region coding. It's very rare to get such high profile figures from all three companies together and the fact that all three were answering unmoderated questions from the public was a very unique experience and one we're not likely to see repeated for a little while.
Saturday the 18th of November was a long day, the expo ran from 10:00AM to 7:00PM and quite a few people came through the doors. A lot of people attending the expo appeared to attend primarily to see the Wii in action, Nintendo had Red Steel, Sonic Wildfire and WarioWare: Smooth Moves on display and the lines were still extremely lengthy. Sony had the party starters range on display (Singstar Legends, Eyetoy Sports, Buzz Junior, Buzz Sports and Guitar Hero 2) and the lines for some of these games were also quite long. Microsoft had a decent setup with plenty of room devoted to the Xbox 360, games on display included Microsoft published titles like Viva Pinata and Gears of War (in a jumping-castle like stand) and other titles coming soon to the Xbox 360 including Sonic the Hedgehog. Ubisoft also chimed in by showing off Rainbow 6: Vegas which looks very impressive visually.
Coolest Statue Ever.
On Sunday the event opened at 10AM and closed at 4PM, so it wasn't such a long day. There were more attendees on the Sunday and once again the Wii lines were quite lengthy. Morten Brodersen, the CEO of Third Wave Games revealed that War World was coming to the Live Arcade and there was even a computer auction. The four PC's that were sold were valued at $2000 AUD and all four sold for under $1200, if you were in the market for a cheap computer then you really couldn't go wrong. After this it was time to pack up and run before we got booted out.
In case you haven't been following our coverage of the event we suggest you head over to the eGames Hub, which has a bundle of information and some very thorough coverage of the expo. We were of course able to provide such comprehensive coverage because PALGN had a booth at the expo. We went for the minimalist look and had a few posters, cards and a massive plasman screen which displayed the website as well as a few random games we decided to throw on. It was great to have a presence at the expo and we're pleased to be supporting such a great Australian run gaming expo.
Overall the eGames and Entertainment Expo was a massive success. Despite the fact that publishers other than the big three (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) didn't have a large presence, there was still enough to see and do at the expo, from playing free Daytona to visiting the PALGN booth (of course). The expo proved that there were truly plenty of people interested in games, and hopefully we'll see you there next year, at eGames 2007!
I hope it runs again next year, it was a lot of fun this time (especially since it was just before the Wii launch here)!
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