Home arrow Wisdom arrow Pixel Dust arrow 06 | 08 | 13 - The lost land of lost gadgets lost?
06 | 08 | 13 - The lost land of lost gadgets lost?

PIXEL DUST

Lost land of lost gadgets lost?

Sun, 13 Aug 2006
by: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it | vaguely related link: Lost World Caverns | thanks: Ghosts of E3 past

Kentia Hall. It was a weird and wonderful place, where strange tech gadgets nuzzled games you’ve never heard of and cute girls played yo-yo while they waited for people to check out their lonely mobile phone stand.

With the news of the re-formed and streamlined E3, we also have news that the streamlining will probably cost many of the smaller players their invite. Many of these guys got a polite message from the ESA saying, thanks for the support in previous years. Where does that leave our beloved E3 gadget carnies?

On a basic level it makes a lot of sense. If you have two thousand exhibitors, the intimate meeting room approach probably isn’t going to work. It’s still a pity to have things shake out like this. The little guys managed to claw their meager coverage on the back of magazines sending their journos out for more "serious" work. Even if they managed to have their own splinter shows, there's almost no way it would be practical for PCPP to get out to them.
One of the joys of E3 was escaping the madness and gaudiness of the big halls to wander through the sideshow of Kentia. Individually, the strange controllers, steering wheels, multi-screen displays, proto-virtual reality harnesses, console face covers, Russian games distributors, re-fashioned mice, vintage arcade games, and odd food stands would be just niche detours you might poke your head into as a curiosity. Together, they were much more.

It was like visiting the Nutty Professor’s brain on a Thursday night.

Maybe all is not lost, however. It seems that many of the companies involved are now making enquiries at the Consumer Electronics Show. It will be fascinating to see how they are met. I guess we’ll see whether E3 has fulfilled its job in raising the industry’s profile, and the profile of the little guys, to the point that they slide right into wider culture.
 


PCPP#160 Available December 10!

The issue that proves there's no limit to epic! Click here to find out how big a single game can really be...

 
...