Game Tapes 02: The Power of the Cell

**Woo!**

This was the first E3 I attended. I remember waiting in line a long time to play Heavenly Sword.

Second!

Man, this was super interesting. From a time when I was into games but didn't follow any of the media, so it felt like I was getting an insider look on my childhood. Crazy how much the press conferences have changed since I started tuning into them a few years ago.

Brad calling FFXIII "active and tactical" may have given me the biggest laugh in this video ;)

It's a shame it took so long for that game to get going and give you enough stuff to let you really dig into the battle system.

The sad part about Kaz is that his completely transparent car salesman rhetoric continues to this day. His company-wide emails sound exactly like this opening speech.

Yamauchi's translator looks like a Yakuza NPC.

Thanks Drew. Now im only going to be able to call him "Cars Hirai".

@buzz_clik: I remember it costing a hell of a lot in Australia. $1000 for the 60 GB is what I remember, and I ended up waiting until 2010 to buy a PS3 for $450. For comparison I just bought a PS4 for $400!

@teddie said:

Yeah, I dropped in just to express my "WTF?" moment there.

Hell yeah. This is my favorite thing on the site. And it scratches my archiving itch!

How does Drew not know what Le Mans looks like 0.o

MY FINGAH IS ON THA BUTTON

I sure love these. I've been watching e3 every year since like 2005 so this is so much fun to see again with commentary.

I had NO idea that a Getaway game was planned for the PS3. It's a bummer it got cancelled, because that first PS2 game is awesome

Alright, no system wars or anything, all the stuff thrown at the PS3 is fair enough...

...but it didn't just "do alright worldwide", it actually ended up outselling the 360 by the end of its lifetime. It actually was ahead of the 360 in many EU territories, as well as Japan, obviously. A bunch of the 360 features weren't even available, and paying for online multiplayer at the time was a ludicrous proposition in many countries.

This happens often, I feel, with American journalists, where the perception of how consoles did is skewed by that market being almost as weird and unusual as Japan in some ways. Things like, hey, the N64 did HORRIBLY. The Gamecube sold about as much as the original Xbox, it wasn't a distant third. But outside the US the original Xbox was barely a thing. I think I've seen one in an actual household once. In my life.

It goes all the way back, too. The NES and the Atari 2600 were not that big of a deal specifically in Europe, but 8 bit computers very much were. The crash of 82? That's pretty much an America-only thing. Videogames weren't going away worldwide, a big American company just disappeared, outside the US people barely noticed, and Nintendo didn't save videogames, it saw a market opportunity in a big US market and took it.

I wouldn't mind as much, but US games journalism kind of dominates the discourse to such a degree that if us outside the US don't keep reminding people of these things we risk just forgetting that they ever happened.

Stuff like this is why I pay for premium.

And oh yeah, this video in particular reminds me of something I asked some years ago now and never got a response to. Why don't you guys use the "ducking" technique on your audio? That would allow the game/video audio to play at full level, and your guys' voices would lower it (or "duck" it) when you spoke. This is also known as "sidechaining" and can be done with a compressor that has a sidechain function. It's a very common, old technique in radio, and I think GB videos could benefit from it.

You never go full N-Gage

Sony's overpowering arrogance combined with Phil Harrison's delivery at several keynotes made me really dislike that dude for a good while lol.

Nintendo's conferences were exactly this brand of shitshow until, like, 2011.

@onemanarmyy: I actually played a little of it last night after watching the video.

One of the very few games set in Ireland. A weird fantasy Ireland, some might say but as I live in SW Tyrone it seemed pretty normal to me...

Holy shit, I don't remember that Genji demo being that awkward.

500€ jesus christ.. hah, got mine for 150€ to play all the exclusives on ps3

interestingly games like mgs5 phantom pain are still released to ps3 (it's apparently not as bad as you woud think) probably because the user base is huge.

This game must be pulling everything out of the system, amazing.

I agree 100%. Having to turn the audio up to 150 or 200% to hear game audio only to have the crew blow my ears out when they talk is really annoying. This would probably be a huge headache to implement but it would improve all future content substantially. @unastrike@drewbert

To make matters worse, the European launch was delayed to March 2007 and cost £425.

The first Genji is one of my favourite games :(

This was excellent.

@dudeglove: A company named Immersion had a patent lawsuit against sony for the rumble tech they had in the dualshock 2. Sony lost the case around that time and didn't want to pay to use rumble in their controllers, so they took it out and called it the controller sixaxis and said rumble was "old" until about 2008 when they worked out a deal b/c of demand and brought out the dualshock 3.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_v._Sony

First I was " :/ " about this old press tapes idea, but no, this gooood stuff! Keep'em coming.

Side-note:

When Drew said "I don't know what track this is, otherwise I'd..." the Cursor was hovering over Le Mans... did Drew not recognize Le Mans? (or did I get that wrong?)

more drew!!!!!

@belowstupid: Except for the part where they didn't. Like, they made fun of how boring and dry this was, but they didn't really shit on the production as much as you seem to think they did.

I had to look it up: George Borshukov, the guy who shows off CyberTiger, won 2 Oscars for his visual effects work on the Matrix films' bullet-time sequences. He recently founded a virtual clothes-fitting startup that aims to let people put in their measurements on a website and preview how clothes will look on a 3D model of themselves. Keep on Georgin, George.

Still the worst E3 press conference of all time. I don't think Sony ever shaked off their arrogant public persona.

@ollieg_94: Pace and tone is part of production, GB tends too drag as well.

To be clear I'm not defending the press conference, it was a stinker. But I'm not going pretend like GB is putting out top shelf stuff. I'm not a fan of the pot calling the kettle black in any instance.

I love this stuff, I wish there was a way they could have found a way to get the Vinny, Alex, Austin, Jason or Dan involved. That would've been neat but no complaints here.

What are you even talking about? When did they do that?

@orbi:

ROYS

BOYS

Great retrospective.

@orbi:

ROY'Z

BOYZ

Man why are these just Drew,Brad and Jeff? Where is Rorie, Dan or Jason? More people the better for stuff like this

I remember looking forward to seeing this back then. "Alright, Sony, sell me on PS3," I thought.

Several cars, guns, and sequels to franchises I didn't care about later, I came away knowing I wouldn't buy a PS3 for a long time. (I got a 160 GB Slim in 2011.)

1:16:29 Is this Battlefield Hardline / The Devils Third?

Ahhhh, Memories! I'm watching this and the Press Conference archive on GameSpot simultaneously.

Cyber Woods 2016 now please.

@kitsune_kuro: That's what I'm talking about.

'06 E3 was the first and only E3 I went to. I was in the room with Hideo when he revealed MGS4. Also Cliffy B showing of Gears....god that was a good ass E3.