The Bumbling Ghosts of E3 Past

Fact: The biggest Video Game exhibition of the year, in the country and most likely, world, is the Electronic Entertainment Expo, affectionately referred to as E3. As if Los Angeles wasn’t crowded enough, media types from all over the country converge on the city to see what games will be newly announced, first footage of previously announced games, and what titles we should be obsessing about — whether they drop in the coming Holiday Season or a year from now. There will surely be plenty of “who won” and “who lost” E3 dialogues, but for all the amazing and competitive stuff that happens at E3, there will also be some colossal duds and controversies. Publishers often recover, but there are some things that go down on the E3 stage that we will never forget. Microsoft Screws the Pooch (and then Sony records it and posts it on the Internet), 2013

Microsoft has had no small number of triumphant moments, like just about every big Halo announcement or Cliffy B walking out on stage with the chainsaw Lancer to promote Gears of War. Previous to this generation, it’s a fair argument to say that Microsoft dominated the exclusive game war. However, when you are showing off your next-generation console that is already launching a week after your competitor just five months in the future, you can’t afford to be taking out your plasma pistol and shooting yourself in the foot. Even a Day One XBOX guy like myself had to cover his head at the bare aesthetics: The XBOX One was going to be big…