It’s about a half hour late, but the briefing has started. Microsoft’s J
Allard, Peter Moore, and Robbie Bach have kicked things off.
They claim that Xbox Live! will have 2 million subscribers within 2
months, and 6 of the top 10 games out now are Xbox titles.
Registration was a mad house. Fortunately both my senior editors at TechWatch were with me. (And thanks
to Heidi too!)
Here in the Shrine Auditorium there’s an excited buzz in the air.
The briefing starts at 7:30pm and will go on for an hour. That will
apparently be followed by a party/reception - The Killers (who played
two sets during the Xbox 360 infomercial on MTV last week) are slated to
perform at 9:30pm, and The Chemical Brothers at 10:30pm. At 1:00am
there’s either a Doors revival band playing or The Doors Close to not
allow anyone in, and the last bus leaves at 2:00am. I plan on being on a
much earlier bus…
The big difference between the Sony approach and the Microsoft one is
that the latter is making their briefing an entertainment event, and
Sony made their briefing a entertaining briefing.
More later.
More details will be forthcoming on the Sony PS3 briefing once I get to
a real keyboard, but meanwhile here’s a shot of the chaos at The Shrine
Auditorium waiting to register for the Microsoft Xbox 360 briefing.
Last one…
Another photo
The PS3 revealed…
Jen-Hsen Huang - NVIDIA
Kaz Harai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America.
No more news, but nice stage - live courtesy of my cell phone with
built-in camera and e-mail.
Fans of video gaming will know that this week is rather special - it’s
the time when the video gaming world flocks to Los Angeles to the annual
E3 Exposition, where the latest and
greatest in electronic entertainment will be showcased and previewed.
The last time I attended E3 was in 1996, and as best I can tell the
energy and excitement has grown exponentially since then. (Search over
on http://www.richterscale.org for that coverage)
I’m starting the week at the Sony media briefing, where it is expected
Sony will officially unveil the next generation PlayStation hardware,
which is based on the new CELL processor designed by IBM in conjunction
with Sony and Toshiba, and will be using standards like OpenGL ES, Cg,
and COLLADA.
Below is a picture of waiting media and analysts ready to enter Stage 27
on the Sony Pictures lot to see what Sony has to say.
