[YouTube] E3 Show Dailies (1998-2012)

https://youtu.be/aDNvakY9fEk

This is a post I meant to put together last June and even had the video mostly done, but I never got around to completing it. It's basically my goodbye to the Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, after it was permanently canceled on December 12, 2023. Since launching the blog in 2017, I'd often post something related to E3 during the second week of June when the show typically took place. I used to drown myself in E3's plethora of video game news, in part because of my former job, but I also played way too many games across a variety of genres and platforms. Last year there were still a lot of video game events held online during the former E3 week, however, this year the showcases have been lacking. At least that's how it feels, though that could be due to my lack of gaming the past year and my aging hardware that can't play most of the newer games.

In the video I flip through some of the E3 Show Daily magazines that date between 1998 and 2012. Each year's show had three issues, and I have a random selection of them, and sometimes only one or two from a single year. I acquired them from former co-workers, as I only attended the 2003 show myself. Below you'll find photographs of the front and backs of the issues that I own. Unfortunately, I don't have the means or the time to scan them. I'm also providing links to previous blog posts about E3 and other conventions at the bottom.

Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)

The Week Before E3 Week: Part 1 (2017 Predictions)

The Week Before E3 Week: Part 2 (Next Generation's E3 1999 Coverage)

The Week Before E3 Week: Part 3 (My E3 2003 Experience)

E3 2018 Predictions

E3 2019 Predictions

Electronic Gaming Monthly #72: E3 1995

E3: The Show That Was (Next Generation #44 - August 1998)

Consumer Electronics Show (CES)

The 1992 Summer Consumer Electronics Show Recap (VG&CE - September 1992)

Tokyo Toy Show/Tokyo Game Show (TGS)

The Tokyo Toy Show: The Games of 1991 (Electronic Gaming Monthly #14)
Sega Introduces Saturn at Tokyo Toy Show (EGM2 - July 1994)

Tokyo Game Show 1998 (Next Generation - January 1999)

Tokyo Game Show Fall 99 (Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine - January 2000)

E3: The Show That Was (Next Generation #44 - August 1998)

While the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) has been canceled the past few years, last December the Entertainment Software Association not only announced that E3 would not happen in 2024, but that it was gone for good. Had there been an E3 2024, this would have been the week for it and many game companies are still using this time to hold presentations, as yesterday was the Xbox Showcase and earlier today there was Ubisoft Forward. I've always enjoyed the week of E3 and have written or posted about E3 many times since I started the blog in 2017. I'm not sure if this week will be my final posts in regards to E3 as I've got a stack of E3 show dailies that I could one day scan, and I might do at least something with some of them later this week. In any case, I think I am running out of E3-related magazine articles to scan. This article, appropriately (for 2024 at least) titled, "E3: The Show That Was," is part of Next Generation magazine's "Intelligence" column from issue #44 and it's not 100% E3, though I did scan all nine pages of the section. 

It's always interesting to see if games that made a good showing actually ended up being successful. Next Generation thought the 1998 exhibition had a lot of promising games and not too many disappointments. It viewed Trespasser, a Jurassic Park game, as one of the best of the show but when it came time to review the game, the magazine only gave it two stars out of five. 

A system likely long forgotten by now, there is a page about VM Labs' "Project X" which would not release until 2000 as Nuon. It also isn't exactly a platform per se, instead it is a technology that was incorporated into select DVD players that added game functionality. The company's CEO thought things were going quite well in 1998 with some strong interest from third-party developers. However, only eight games officially released for Nuon. Also, this issue was published a few months before the Dreamcast released in Japan, and there are a couple spots where an unnamed shooter is mentioned, even stating that it could possibly be a pack-in for the console. That shooter, later titled Geist Force, never released.

Year 7: April Update

Since I last wrote an update there has been quite a bit of LEGO news, more Star Wars unveilings, and some video game movie releases. Last month I did a week of Tetris posts in relation to that movie but I didn't get a chance to do anything for the Super Mario Bros. film that is doing quite well in theaters. That was primarily because I was playing too much Horizon Forbidden West which didn't leave me a lot of time, though I also did post the Shigeru Miyamoto interviews in November for his 70th birthday which wasn't too long ago. That wasn't the only recent Mario premiere either as the Super Nintendo World attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood opened February 17th.

Star Wars Celebration took place in Japan last week and you can check out  StarWars.com for a recap of all the announcements. There are more movies and TV shows in development, of course, but I'll just mention some toys and include Indiana Jones here. LEGO has two new Star Wars dioramas and three Indiana Jones sets arriving on May 1st. For Star Wars, there is the Emperor's Throne Room ($99.99) and Endor Speeder Chase ($79.99).

The Indiana Jones sets are: Raiders of the Lost Ark's Temple of the Golden Idol ($149.99)  The Last Crusade's Fighter Plane Chase ($34.99), and Escape From the Lost Tomb ($39.99).

Indiana Jones is getting two lines of action figures from Hasbro too. One is a retro line modeled after the Kenner toys from the '80s and the other is a larger deluxe series.

On March 31st, a Sonic the Hedgehog visual novel game was released for free on Steam. I don't have much interest in visual novels and have been busy so I haven't tried it yet but for free I probably will eventually. Sonic already had a LEGO "Ideas" set and now he'll have his own series this August. The sets are Sonic's Speed Sphere Challenge ($34.99), Tail's Workshop and Tornado Plane ($39.99), Amy's Animal Rescue Island ($49.99), and Sonic's Green Hill Zone Loop Challenge ($99.99).

This might be the most images I've posted in an update yet and possibly the most LEGO news but I'm not quite done. There was a new LEGO video game unveiled on March 23rd and it's already releasing on May 19th. LEGO 2K Drive is an open-world racer similar to Forza Horizon with transforming vehicles like those found in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Multiplayer modes include both online and local split-screen. It's being developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K Games. 

The last bit of news I'll mention is that the Electronic Entertainment Expo known as E3 has been canceled this year. Typically taking place the second week of June, E3 had often been a fun few days featuring a flood of new game announcements and trailers. While the pandemic didn't do it any favors, E3 has been shrinking over the years as many publishers opt to do separate setups in Los Angeles or online-only events. Financially it makes sense and with digital game sales increasing there isn't much need to convince retailers to order games which is what E3 originally was. Way back in the '90s the retail trade show was attended by executives from Toys "R" Us, Walmart, and others to determine what the next big game was going to be and they'd have meetings with publishers that competed with one another for shelf space. Over the years E3 became more of a spectacle to garner attention from online media outlets and bloggers, and later influencers, and in 2017 the show opened to the public as it slowly declined in relevance. I'll miss it if this is the end.

Thanks for visiting,

Jonathan

Year 5: June Update

Topps Brady Bunch Trading Card

I've been quite slow to post here and upload YouTube videos this month but I need to take some weekends for myself from time-to-time or rather very often this year. As I write this I spent the better part of yesterday making seven attempts to record the die-cast cases video, and that was after making my first attempt on the Friday before. It's not much of a video but I made mistakes and had some issues during the recording process and then had to put together the blog post and it all ended up more time consuming than I'd have liked. Next I need to start work on a die-cast car video and I had a request not too long ago for another Starting Lineup Talking Baseball video which I plan on preparing for July. I also hope to launch another YouTube channel shortly but that might require days increasing from 24 to 30 hours because I don't have enough time!

June is still a month of many game announcements with an E3 digital event taking place again. I'll highlight a few of the reveals though nothing blew my mind. Being a Forza Horizon fan, the unveiling of the fifth game coming later this year was my favorite game of the show. I know, the fifth entry in a racing series isn't anything special but I find the games to be a lot of fun and mostly relaxing to play. Developer Playground Games has been working on the next Fable game too which led me to believe a new Forza Horizon wasn't releasing any time soon.

Square Enix and Eidos Montreal have been working on a Guardians of the Galaxy game that is on target for an October 26th release. Ubisoft and Nintendo showed off the second Mario + Rabbids game subtitled Sparks of Hope. Nintendo made no mention of a new Switch model but it did announce Metroid Dread, WarioWare: Get It Together, Mario Party Superstars, Advance Wars Re-Boot Camp, and a Game & Watch handheld that includes three The Legend of Zelda games plus one mini-game. 

Sony skipped E3 again and Sega is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Super Monkey Ball with a new game that includes 300 stages from previous games. While not announced specifically at E3, Outright Games has revealed quite a few more licensed games recently that are expected to release before the end of the year. Since I've played a few of its games on my YouTube channel and I like to promote family-friendly games, I'll list those here too. The titles are PAW Patrol: The Movie -- Adventure City Calls, My Friend Peppa Pig, PJ Masks: Heroes of the Night, The Addams Family: Mansion Mayhem, Blaze and the Monster Machines: Axle City Racers, and Fast & Furious Spy Racers: Rise of Sh1ft3r. I had no idea there even was a Fast & Furious cartoon.

Thanks for visiting,

Jonathan

Electronic Gaming Monthly #72: E3 1995

The past three years I've put together Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) coverage that often includes some magazine scans and my predictions. Unfortunately, there is no E3 this year due to the virus which makes show predictions impossible. I could do some for general announcements as press outlets and individual publishers will be holding digital events over the next month but I'm unlikely to do that. For this year I have old magazine coverage and I also played a trade demo of SkyGunner. Although I've no idea if it's a demo that was distributed at an E3, it's something a little unique that ties to the press so I figured it is sort of E3 themed. As the title of this post exclaims, the scans below are from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) issue number 72 from July 1995.

In May 1995 the very first E3 took place in Los Angeles and EGM's editors picked some of their favorite games of the show to highlight. As the article states, these are not the best games of the show and the "Review Crew" was not involved in making these picks. The first E3 took place when the industry was transitioning from 16-bit to 32-bit, and these were also the early days of 3D graphics. While I don't typically show M-rated games on the blog, at least not modern ones, I should point out that the scans do include games like Mortal Kombat 3 and Killer Instinct. Of course, 25 years ago the visuals were not realistic and I don't believe the images are too graphic.

If you read the EGM cover image above you might be thinking you'd rather see the Ultra 64 and I won't leave you hanging. It's actually only one image and we already know what the N64 looks like but the whole Press Start section is interesting as it covers the Saturn launch and PlayStation pricing as well. There is also a rumor mentioned that SquareSoft could be bringing the much anticipated Final Fantasy 7 to the Ultra 64...