We’re finished with E3, after three hectic days of tournaments, cameras, flashing lights, and the company of other gamers.  It’s a crazy time of the year for the gaming industry, and this year was no different.  I made it down there Monday evening, in time for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 conference, and that was quite a show.  While I openly dislike the name of the Xbox 360 (360?  Doesn’t that mean going full circle and making no forward progress?) I am impressed with its hardware and its goals.  The next generation of Xbox LIVE is going to take everything I approved of about LIVE and improve on it.  Different gaming “arenas” for competative and casual gamers so everyone plays the opponents they actually want to play?  Sweet!

Plus they went and gave me a heart attack by announcing that Square-Enix is going to be working on the X360.  We all know the Xbox was a joke in Japan.  It’s ok to admit it.  The games and appearance of the hardware just didn’t appeal to the japanese market.  This time Microsoft isn’t screwing around.  They want Japan.  Not only is Mistwalker working on three titles for the X360, but now Square-Enix is going to be working on it?  O.o Yeah, that might help their foreign/RPG appeal.

It may or may not spell misfortune for the PS3.  I don’t know.  I didn’t attend Sony’s press conference so I don’t know what kind of ammo they’re bringing to the table, but it had better be good.  Soul Calibur III may move some units, but they need something bigger.  A lot of somethings bigger.  And this is coming from someone who has loved her PS2 for years, and used to disdain the Xbox as a doomed enterprise.

This is why E3 is so exciting.  It’s about us huddling in the shadows as Godzilla and King Kong brawl right in front of our eyes.  Big corporate competition.  Big ideas.  Big propaganda.  It’s all there, and it’s ground-shaking in its fury.

I like my corner of the E3 world.  The one where we don’t need booth babes anymore.  Ubisoft only had one booth with babes this year: the Prince of Persia booth.  Instead of capitalizing on the power of skin they had us, gamers, taking on all comers and spanking them silly.  We lost maybe six matches in three full days of playing on games we had never touched before.  We didn’t count how many we won.  I guess the official tally is “A Lot.” Wicked.

We had fun just being gamers.  We didn’t have to look cute for pictures.  We didn’t want to.  You’d be hard pressed to find a picture of us where we weren’t either playing (in which case we’re oblivious) or totally goofing off.  It was a refreshing change to the tradition of polished women in costumes smiling and looking pretty.

It’s a lot of hard work, a lot of energy and patience, and a lot of glitz and glamour.  I can hardly wait for next year.  Ladies and gentlemen of the press, please prepare your butts for kicking.

- jinx

carve your name into my arm