E3 1999 (Concept)

E3 1999

CONCEPT

The 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles California on May 13-15.

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Overview

South Hall

E3 1999 marked the return to the show's original home, the Los Angeles (Location) Convention Center in downtown L.A. While the show had always been designed to put a spotlight on the games industry, the light was a bit brighter this year for the wrong reasons. Just a few weeks prior, the terrible events of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado (Location) had taken place, and the media was quick to point fingers at the gaming industry as a bad influence. Several companies shut their booths to any reporters and several shooter games were only shown behind closed doors.

Sega (Company) came to the show with the Dreamcast (Platform) in full force and announced the release date of 9/9/99 and the low price of $199.99. They also announced that it would come packed with a 56K modem for online play, the first console to achieve such a feat. Sonic Adventure (Game), NFL 2000, and Ready 2 Rumble got their share of attention, but the real star of the Dreamcast was the absolutely stunning port of Soul Calibur.

Sony Booth

Sony did not come empty handed though. They countered Dreamcast's wave of excitement by debuting the Next Generation PlayStation, which had just been announced a few months before the show. Sony promised graphics that matched what would at the time only be possible in cut scenes, and demonstrated this with a real-time version of Final Fantasy VIII (Game)'s ballroom scene. In the center of Sony's booth on the show floor was a large, silver pyramid, where attendees could play with tech demos or even try their skills at Gran Turismo 2000 running on the Emotion engine.

Nintendo (Company) also officially announced their next console at E3 '99, codenamed Dolphin. Not many details were given, and it was apparent that their focus was primarily still on the Nintendo 64 (Platform), which was showcasing titles such as Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong 64 (Game), and Super Smash Bros. (Game).

Memorable games from this year's show included Valve's Team Fortress 2 (Game), which would not be seen again for many years. There was also Power Stone (Game), Deus Ex (Game), Max Payne (Game), Unreal Tournament (Game), System Shock 2 (Game), Shenmue (Game), Final Fantasy IX (Game), and Freelancer (Game).

Games of the Show

South Hall

The games listed below not only include those playable on the show floor, but any game referenced at the show. This would include video presentations, announcements, advertisements, or any other official reference to the game from its developer, publisher, or platform. They are listed mainly according to the publisher of the game, with a few exceptions where the publisher did not attend the show. An example of this would be a hardware company such as Nintendo or nVidia showing a game not developed or published by them. In several situtations, games either changed their title or even their publisher before they were released. For historical accuracy in chronicling E3, such games will be listed with their original names and publishers, and linked to the corresponding page of the final game.

3dfx

Voodoo 3 series graphics cards

The 3DO Company (Company)

Acclaim

Acclaim Booth

Activision (Company)

Agetec

Atlus (Company)

Blizzard Entertainment (Company)

Diablo II (Game)

Bungie (Company)

Capcom (Company)

Capcom Booth

Codemasters (Company)

Colin McRae Rally 2.0

Eidos Interactive (Company)

Eidos Booth

Electronic Arts (Company)

EA - WCW

Fox Interactive (Company)

Fox Booth

Gathering of Developers (Company)

GT Interactive

GT Interactive Booth

Interplay

Koei

Konami (Company)

Konami Booth

LucasArts

Microsoft

Midway

Midway - Michael Buffer

Namco (Company)

Natsume (Company)

Nintendo (Company)

Nintendo

Psygnosis

Sega (Company)

Sega Booth

Sierra (Company)

SNK (Company)

Neo Geo Pocket Color (Platform)

Sony

Sony Booth

Squaresoft (Company)

Squaresoft Booth

Tecmo (Company)

THQ (Company)

Tiger

Game.com

Ubisoft

Working Designs (Company)

Game Critics Awards

The Best of E3

The Game Critics Awards (Concept) are decided by an independent group of North American media outlets. They have selected the most promising games of each Electronic Entertainment Expo since 1998, and have thus become recognized as the most respected "Best of" awards that come out of the annual show. Games qualify for nomination by having hands-on playable versions of the game at the show.

BEST OF SHOW