E3 Day 1: Nintendo, Funcom, SoE

Wow!  The first day of E3 is over.  This was a huge day for us that started out at 6am.  We knew that Nintendo would be sending shuttles to the various hotels but we had no idea when they would be coming.  We decided to go down to the lobby just to check and see if the shuttless were there and perhaps grab a bite to eat.  Turns out that when we got down to the lobby that the final shuttles leaving for the event were almost full and ready to pull out.  Missing breakfast sucked but we were able to get our spiffy paper Nintendo wristbands and make it to the Kodak Theater. 

When we got to the Kodak we entered the lobby area where Nintendo has graciously provided sodas, water, and all the hot coffee people could drink… well not really.  The coffee was gone in three minutes and they kept rushing to refill the dispensers.  See?  That’s what you get for having conferences this early on the morning. 😛

The conference overall left us with some mixed feelings.   Several games were announced like Animal Crossing City Folk, a new Pokemon game, GTA Chinta Town (DS), Wii Music, Wii Sports Resort, and more Guitar Hero games than I care to count.  We’re going to record a podcast tonight with our detailed thoughts so look for that if you’re interested.

After the Nintendo event we shuttled back to the conference center and had an interview with Funcom.   Yes, you read that right.  Funcom.  I’m not a fan of Age of Conan but meeting the Eidos/Funcom guys was extremely interesting and truly an enjoyable experience.  I’ll be writing a piece for the Vault that should be released very soon.  If you’re an Age of Conan fan you’ll like it.  They offered us free food and free drinks so I can’t really say much bad about them. 😉

After the Funcom interview we had lunch compliments of the nice folks at E3.  Pretty darn good selection of food but the drink selection was lacking with only Lemonade and Iced Tea.  After lunch we went down to the expo showcase pavillion thingy and looked at all the games being promoted.  It was actually rather lackluster.  The room was tiny and the selection of games was definitely far from complete.   Warhammer Online was not being showcased at all yet SOE had Star Wars Galaxies up…. wtf?  (SOE had their games out in force).

The work day ended with a jaunt over to the SOE room where we had guided demonstrations of The Agency and Free Realms.  They had DC Universe on display but Gamespot was hogging the room with their TV cameras.  All they had to show was the trailers that were available online anyway.  SoE was also showing SWG, EQ2(new expansion, blah blah), and their Legends of Norrath Card Game.  Oh, and interestingly we saw John Smedley chillin in the room wearing full business attire.  He stood out like a sore thumb but definitely brought a pressence of power.  Watching the SoE employees squirm while their boss watched them demo the games was entertaining. ;) 

Alright, that’s our first day at E3.  We’ll be giving you guys lots of details on the games either tonight or tomorrow here on our blog and in our pieces for the Vault.  

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  • another animal crossing seriously? i’m still paying off my house on the one for gamecube

  • sorry your first comment sucked.us i’m such a girl. who totally digs you of course.

  • yea i watched the livestream from nintendos press conference and was kinda disappointed that there were only casual games, no new zelda, no mario etc.
    anyways interesting article and I’m looking forward to read more about your “adventures” at E3 =)

  • They did say that there were going to be more Mario and Zelda games coming to the Wii.. just no announcement. 🙁 And you never know, SSBB wasn’t announced at Nintendo’s press conference. They waited for all the press conferences to end then they dropped that bomb on everyone. Perhaps Nintendo will steal the show at the 11th hour of E3. One can hope. 😉

  • yea those games will come definatly, but most people expected to hear from them at the conference which was kind of absurd (the conference, not the people).
    But yeah, E3 isn’t over yet, who knows what they’re still hiding =)

  • DC Universe Online looked like uber crap from what I saw anyway, really disappointing.

    I saw some real nice sneak peaks from Sony though for the Ps3. Infamous looks great, you should see if there is a demo or something there.

  • Looking VERY forward to that interview, Keen.

    As for WAR, Josh posted at TTH that the real fun begins tomorrow, so get there early!

    As for Nintendo… read my blog, it’s too long and painful to recap here.

  • @Bildo “I think I’m no longer Nintendo’s market.”
    They don’t need us anymore. 🙁

    Any quality podcast about the vidjegames is always appreciated! 😀

  • Nintendo always seems understated at first.

    As for Funcom, did you ask why they’re planning even bigger Sieges and Cities when the current is still lackluster and not working? That’s the biggest thing on their roadmap that’s baffling me.

  • Well, this bites. I can’t get this .wav file converted to a Mp3 without it sounding like chipmunks. I have the bitrate at 44100hz and everything. I’m too tired to figure it out tonight but I’ll look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow and hopefully get the podcast up for you guys then.

  • I’m p sure you got shafted at the e3 you gotta go too guys, lol. I’m almost ready to sell my Wii at this point.

  • Gamespot has WAR videos… so there is a room somehwere. Did you look for the exclamation point? 😉

    There is nothing wrong with the chipmunks Christmas album.

  • WAR is definitely here in the EA room, however it was not set up on the expo floor with EA’s other game’s. E3 is divded into the showcase floor and the private rooms where press are taken in with appointments (usually) and given guided tours/demos of games. Makes no sense to me why they arent’ showing WAR out in the open when SOE has SWG and EQ2 out there… but maybe that’s because they want all the goodness in one spot. We’ll see!