A developer's look at the PlayStation 3

by Blake Snow { Jan 9th 2006 at 1:30PM }

Josh Robinson, who claims to have developed for the PS3 over the past year using one of five developer kits released in North America, questions why Sony has yet to reveal and deliver the final box to developers. Considering that the console appears to be in a near-complete state, that could be a justified inquiry. From the article: "I started [off] VERY excited about the PS3. I was very confident that it was going to just destroy the XBOX 360 just on the name SONY alone. The more time that goes by the more I am becoming doubtful. Everything I’ve developed or seen developed has yet to be 'next gen.'"

He does note the difficulty in creating demos for a system without a final box and believes the unit's true "next-gen" potential won't be achieved until one year from launch. By limiting what's available in the form of developer kits, does Sony still have some cards up their sleeve?

[Thanks Jason]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ross Miller @ Jan 9th 2006 1:12PM

It should be noted (why? I don't know, because I said so and that trumps all other reasons) that Josh Robinson actually said, "I started of VERY excited..." - of.

It doesn't exactly change his credibility since, well, he's not making money off of his spelling and grammatical abilities. Still, gotta quote the man right...

Michael McGuire @ Jan 9th 2006 2:04PM

He states that "My job was primarily asset creation. I was creating assets to populate the path where our camera would be flying during the demo. "

The guy ain't a developer. In fact, he also states: "I have been pretty excited about the whole cell processing thing. I am not a very technical person but my understanding of it was pretty clear. (Multiple processors to handle individual events in parallel). Sounds pretty good to me! "

Come on guys, the title of this posting is extremely misleading.

m3mnoch @ Jan 9th 2006 2:04PM

yep. agreed. besides, most artists i've worked with over the years have had serious issues with spelling and grammar.

oh, and a secret: quotes you read in the news? they aren't actual quotes. the reporter will call up a company and ask for a quote. the company pr person writes it, edits it, runs it by the person who is being "quoted" for their approval and then shuffles it back to the reporter. i've seen it happen many, many times. that's why you don't usually see [sic] in big industry magazines or newspapers.

thanks for being honest, josh. i truly wish you and your company the best of luck.

m3mnoch.

CapAmerica @ Jan 9th 2006 2:10PM

I see one of two reason why developers have yet to get real systems.

1. Sony is getting cocky and think their unstoppable and don't need to had out real systems.

2. The PS3 is no where near finished. And there really was a massive set back on the system.

I really have a strong feeling Sony is going to screw up this gen and fumble their large first place lead. Do I think they will lose the #1 spot? No, I think they will be able to hold the #1 spot but not by much. It will be by a small enough margin that a single slip up will cost them the #1 spot. They think their unstoppable, no one can beat them and the fans will do what every they say, that is a huge mistake for them to be thinking, Just look at what happen to Nintendo when they started thinking like that. Only thing that saved Nintendo's ass was the fact they have hit franchise that they could live off of. Sony does not have that.

m3mnoch @ Jan 9th 2006 2:12PM

you mean he's not a programmer. he's a developer.

developer encompases: programmers (of which is a very small part of the actual team), 3d artists, level designers, graphic designers, game designers, writers, sound guys, pm's, managers, etc. all of them work together as a team. they are all 'developers.'

aside from some basic mel scripting or something, the actual number of people who write code consist of about 5-10% of the team. it's the 2 or 3 guys that do the game engine (basically pulling disparate 3rd party sdk's together), a couple for ai and a couple for tools. that's really about it for 'programmers.'

so, no. i don't agree with you. the title is not misleading.

m3mnoch.

wwx @ Jan 9th 2006 2:14PM

Not sure how credible a 3D artist can be about the programming aspects of video games.

http://www.downinfront.tv/About_US/Team_Members/Josh_Robinson_-_Writer/

tiny url: http://tinyurl.com/7opz9

I'm sure the guy knows his stuff, but if he is an artist and not a programmer I don't know that I would take his word over anyone elses.

wwx @ Jan 9th 2006 2:20PM

I have no idea why those links don't work.

Just go here and look for Josh Robinson.

He's made a few PC games, but that doesn't mean he knows anything about the CELL. The PC is completely different arch.

http://www.downinfront.tv/About_US/Team_Members

Brian @ Jan 9th 2006 2:28PM

The PS3 won't hit it's launch point of May. Maybe in Japan, but only in limited quantities. If devs haven't got final boxes yet, they are going to need some serious help finishing the games in the next couple months. Hell the PS3 not having a release date or not even going into final production yet says that the PS3 is going to be late and it's going to be hard to find. Also, unless Sony pulls FFVII out for launch(which will probably happen), they will have a launch as weak as the PS2, which was horrid. It took the PS2 almost a year to even get some games worth playing. It will take the PS3 at least that long. Don't expect Devil May Cry, GT 5, GTA, MGS4 to be available at launch. It won't be until next XMAS or spring before any of those gems comes out.

ncxcstud @ Jan 9th 2006 2:29PM

Anyone read the forum posts where this DP489 went in looking for a verbal fight, and got his own read spanked in the end? All of what Josh says, I would believe.

Its amazing when someone says something negative concerning a product (of any kind) that another person thinks will be the greates gift to man since women and peanut butter, that they get their panties in a twist and try to stir up trouble.

I love my XBOX360, but I know that some people don't like it and will try, every which way, to bash it to nothingness. No skin off my back, they're just jealous that a next-gen system is here now, and its not the one they wanted to come out first.

MuddBoggr @ Jan 9th 2006 2:47PM

Wow, Joystiq, this article was originally posted on:

11/24/05

so welcome to a month and a half ago....

(You can see when it was posted originally by going to http://www.downinfront.tv/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,94/func,view/id,20/catid,9/limit,6/limitstart,0/ and seeing when the first forum post about the article was made.

I'm calling BS on it too, because there is no way the writer could have seen anything even resembling final hardware or a decent version of the software tools in that time period. In fact, the most info we get is about his supposed involvement in prepping for E3, which was almost a year ago. Also, he claims his video was the only one rendering in real time when we know that at least Mobile Suit Gundam and Heavenly Sword were showing some realtime elements as well, so not only is this story OLD, it is INACCURATE as well.

Joystiq: get with the program and stop dressing up OLD op-ed pieces like they are breaking news. It's just going to piss off your loyal readers who come here to see actual news, and not ancient, hackneyed op-ed pieces from someone who may or may not know what they are talking about.

Stratuscaster @ Jan 9th 2006 2:57PM

Yes, the article was posted back on 11/24/05. But it wasn't cross-posted or promoted to any other site until this month.

When did you all hear about this DownInFront.tv site? I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that until today (or perhaps a week or so ago, when it appeared on Digg and the server was brought down), never.

Eveyrone wants to bitch and tear stuff down. No one wants to simply say "interesting article, thanks for taking the time to give us a little insight into what's happening."

History, folks. Rarely does a launch game take full advantage of the capabilities the system has to offer. Have some freaking patience and an open mind.

MuddBoggr @ Jan 9th 2006 3:34PM

You don't get it, Stratuscaster.

When Joystiq's Blake Snow writes:

"Josh Robinson, who claims to have developed for the PS3 over the past year using one of five developer kits released in North America, questions why Sony has yet to reveal and deliver the final box to developers. Considering that the console appears to be in a near-complete state, that could be a justified inquiry."

...not only does he fail to note to the readers that the article is a month and a half old, he ties it to "questions why Sony has yet to reveal and deliver the final box to developers," which would be impossible, because Sony had clearly said all along that they would not release the "final box to developers" until sometime in Dec. 2005, which was well before this article was written.

So the whole premise by which this old story was dredged up is in fact totally illegitimate by any reasonable standard.

Your comments about how nobody has ever heard of this site before don't add credence to the story, they simply add more questions as to why Joystiq thought an old story from a source nobody has ever heard of before was newsworthy.

As far as your comment that "eveyrone [sic] wants to bitch and tear stuff down. No one wants to simply say "interesting article, thanks for taking the time to give us a little insight into what's happening" goes... Well, that would be great if the story wasn't so old, inaccurate, and from a questionable source. The fact is this article isn't news at all, (news has to be TIMELY, and from a reliable source, this is neither,) and that fact alone precludes it from being really "interesting," and it is certainly not giving us any "insight."

Josh Robinson @ Jan 9th 2006 3:38PM

I wrote the article. Im responding to muddbogger saying that i was being innacurate. When i said that we (sony) were the only ones running the demo in real time i was specifically refering to the demos being shown at that presentation. I was not refering to every game developer on earth. I have no idea what the state of Mobile Suit Gundam and Heavenly Sword were during e3 of last year but they were not at the demo. I would be pretty suprised however if they had much more than an emulation running on a normal pc. Which is certainly possible.

here is a link to the demo we did at e3 last year. this video is about 2 hours long fyi.

http://media.ps3.ign.com/articles/615/615091/vids_1.html
I wrote the article. Im responding to muddbogger saying that i was being innacurate. When i said that we (sony) were the only ones running the demo in real time i was specifically refering to the demos being shown at that presentation. I was not refering to every game developer on earth. I have no idea what the state of Mobile Suit Gundam and Heavenly Sword were during e3 of last year but they were not at the demo. I would be pretty suprised however if they had much more than an emulation running on a normal pc. Which is certainly possible.

here is a link to the demo we did at e3 last year. this video is about 2 hours long fyi.

http://media.ps3.ign.com/articles/615/615091/vids_1.html

m3mnoch @ Jan 9th 2006 3:45PM

yes. the original piece was from a month and a half ago. i forgot. since then, sony showed us new stuff at ces.

oh. wait. they didn't.

that's because developers haven't built anything for it. also, if you look at the last post on that forum thread by josh, it's 3 days ago. i would think, if he'd changed his mind, he might have mentioned it.

m3mnoch.

Ryan @ Jan 9th 2006 4:04PM

Josh, wouldn't you say that this is the price to pay for using bleeding-edge technology that won't be fully accessible until the console finally launches?

I've always thought that perhaps both M$ and Sony bit off more than they could chew. The awesome next-gen games will come, but it's a little further ahead on the horizon that both of those companies would have you believe. At least Nintendo's new system will be more accessible from the start (according to devs and Nintendo themselves).

MuddBoggr @ Jan 9th 2006 4:10PM

Josh Robinson writes: "When i said that we (sony) were the only ones running the demo in real time i was specifically refering to the demos being shown at that presentation. I was not refering to every game developer on earth. I have no idea what the state of Mobile Suit Gundam and Heavenly Sword were during e3 of last year but they were not at the demo."

So you work for Sony?

Footage of Mobile Suit Gundam and Heavenly Sword WERE BOTH SHOWN at Sony's E3 presentation. Look at your own video link, toward the end, where new IPs are revealed.

Gosh, I guess you weren't paying much attention...

Mobile Suit Gundam was shown in controllable realtime form at the TGS, confirming the E3 footage was real.

Heavenly Sword's developers were very upfront about their game being run realtime in both their developer logs and in many subsequent posts by a confirmed Heavenly Sword developer on the Beyond3d forums. Ninja Theory, Heavenly Sword's developer, now a Sony-published 2nd-party, (which you should know if you work for Sony) has confirmed that they do indeed have the game running on development kits, though they cannot say whether they are working on the near-final "PS3 Reference" SDK yet, presumably because of NDA constraints.

Josh Robinson @ Jan 9th 2006 4:17PM

I dont understand all the hate. I went out of my way to comment on the ps3 because i was being asked about it all the time. I get nothing out of this and have no motivation to lie about anything I wrote.

You know some of you guys make it difficult for people witin the industry to comment on anything because we just get attacked when we do.

Also, I can only say so much about the technology because of NDA. I cant release any pictures of the box, or the work because of NDA. So im sorry if the article doesnt have as much information as you'd like. Specifically about the cell processing and how its been running. So i wrote within the guidlines that I am able to.

sorry if some of you dont like the article. You dont need to dig so hard to try and discredit anything ive said. I'm very accessable via the forums on www.downinfront.tv I will answer any questions im asked directly.

spencer @ Jan 9th 2006 4:20PM

This guy is fake nobody in there right mind would even say things like that if he is making a game as a dev. he is no dought bad at making games and sucks as a dev. with games coming out like war hawk and such that look so great if he cant work with next gen then no one will buy his game sorry loser.

MuddBoggr @ Jan 9th 2006 4:44PM

Josh Robinson wrote:

"Also, I can only say so much about the technology because of NDA. I cant release any pictures of the box, or the work because of NDA. So im sorry if the article doesnt have as much information as you'd like. Specifically about the cell processing and how its been running. So i wrote within the guidlines that I am able to."

This proves to be you either aren't really the Josh Robinson that wrote the article, or you are the Josh Robinson who wrote the article and you are a fraud.

Why?

The first rule of these NDAs is you cannot even admit to being under an NDA, because doing so violates the NDA.

Everyone in development who has had to sign an NDA knows this, and it is the reason why in my above post about Ninja Theory's developer stated he was "presumably" under NDA constraints.

I want to believe you, and there is certainly no "hate" as you claim coming from me, but your story just doesn't add up.

Josh Robinson @ Jan 9th 2006 4:59PM

Spencer,

The games I've worked on have sold in the millions and I'm also a published author for the very software we use at work. 3D Studio Max versiion 8.0 by Josh Robinson. (will be released in about 6 or 8 weeks)

Untold Legends for the psp by its self sold over half a million. Nba street sold 1.3million, then there is Planetside,everquest 2, Untold Legends 2, March Madness 2001 and 2002. Prior to games i was in broadcast where i was doing high end rendering.

At what point will i be qualified do you think?

Josh Robinson @ Jan 9th 2006 5:14PM

What do think there is ONE NDA for the entire planet? I'm very aware of what i can and cant say. If your friends cant mention that they are under NDA then thats fine and it's per their NDA. Thank you for telling me what the NDA that I signed says. I didnt know that there was only one NDA for the whole world. I appreciate it.

I'll resign immediately.

Evil Inside @ Jan 9th 2006 5:14PM

Everyone seems to be missing one key point of this article: there are only 5 PS3 developments units in North America. That doesn't seem like much to me.

Considering the titles we already know are in development, along with the fac that some of the worlds largest developers/publishers are located in the US and Canada, we can guess who has the 5 PS3 development systems.

My guess: 1 belongs to Epic(Unreal 2007), Rockstar has another(GTA), EA gets at least 2(Fight Night Round 3, plus Madden, Burnout, Battlefield, etc), and I'm willing to bet Ubisoft has one as well.

m3mnoch @ Jan 9th 2006 5:16PM

"The first rule of these NDAs is you cannot even admit to being under an NDA, because doing so violates the NDA."

hahahahhahahahhahahahhahahahah

oh. god. hurts. laughing....

hahahahahhahahahhah....

jesus. funny.

dude. none of the nda's i've ever signed have had that "clause" in them.

what a tard.

welcome to the dregs, josh. just try to have an intelligent conversation with some of these guys. i dare you.

*sigh*

yes, bd, i'm lookin's at you. specifically you and mark b.

i think he's actually your dp489 in disguise. same vocabulary and 'anti mumbo jumbo' stance.

http://www.joystiq.com/2005/12/04/certain-highly-anticipated-xbox-360-title-filling-four-discs/

m3mnoch.

James O'R @ Jan 9th 2006 5:17PM

This is the last straw for me, I cant wait anymore i'm going to get a 360 and worry about raising the finance for a PS3 when it (eventually) comes out. I cant put up with my PS2 after playing my friends 360.

Sorry Sony this may have not happened if you had bothered to give me something to hang on to at CES!! How could you simply fob off your loyal fans??

copa @ Jan 9th 2006 5:33PM

Josh wrote:

"You know some of you guys make it difficult for people witin the industry to comment on anything because we just get attacked when we do."

I completely agree. This is pathetic.

Josh, you are gracious to a fault. You really shouldn't bother responding to the trolls.

Now, to respond to a troll. Evil Inside, you are a freaking genius. Glad to hear that Sony Online Entertainment doesn't make your top 5 list on who gets a PS3 dev kit.

James O'R @ Jan 9th 2006 5:34PM

By the way I'd like to thank Josh for taking the time to give us some info, cheers!

m3mnoch @ Jan 9th 2006 5:55PM

well said, copa.

agreed.

that being said:

josh bitch-slapped that troll over on his forum. damn funny. loved the photo of the dog eating the cat. i wouldn't mind seeing him carving up some joystiq fanboys.

he's kinda the ultimate fanboy crusher if you think about it. a guy who works for soe, yet is disappointed in the way sony's handling the ps3 so far. well. that and he's an ACTUAL GAME DEVELOPER which never hurts.

maybe he'll see it as sport instead of any need for defense.

m3mnoch.

Mango @ Jan 9th 2006 6:51PM

You Joystiq trolls are pathetic. If someone says something that discredits something you like, you get all pissy.

Most of you are obviously stupid because you can't even use the correct there, their, or they're. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what they all mean. Idiots.

As for Josh and his PS3 comments, they are most certainly valid. Oh no everyone, the ps3 will end up being a piece of garbage compared to what it was hyped to be. Wah wah (i'm crying). I'll put money down that Nintendo's launch titles look better that PS3's. Xbox360 is good. Revolution will be good. PS3 is a hack job that will hopefully be saved by loyal developers, but it has no organized online system, no widely available dev kits, no final silicon, nothing more than "conceptual design".

Josh, thank you for your insight.

Trolls, fuck you.

Don Neufeld @ Jan 9th 2006 8:37PM

/wave Josh

hank @ Jan 9th 2006 9:37PM

The article has a ring of truth about it. I believe we really won't see next generation titles until about a year into the console's life. The first games will likely be titles the publishers didn't have a lot of time to polish to make the Spring deadline OR games intended for the PS2 that were instead held for the PS3.

m3mnoch @ Jan 9th 2006 10:31PM

hey don.

can you fill us in on what you think about the ps3 dev kit? these i'gnant bastards are giving josh a hard time because he's 'just' an artist and not a programmer -- despite any efforts to correct them.

that, and it's refreshing to have people post who know what the hell they are talking about.

m3mnoch.

p.s. ha! that'll teach you to wave in public....

Ryan de michigan @ Jan 9th 2006 11:02PM

plus didnt we just hear that Hundreds of PS3 Dev kits went out?

kizza @ Jan 9th 2006 11:34PM

Everybody airs there possitives & negatives with these things.

Look at how people are saying the 360 is not next gen. What fools, of course its next gen. you idiots, look at some of the games & graphics, I say this without ecven having seen one in person yet. But I've seen the demos & you don't have to be a genius to realise that the games look much, much better than xbox graphics. You also don't need to be too clever to realise that all new systems games get better with programmers abilities to work on that machine. Look at Tekken 1 on PS1, then put Tekken 3 on.

Until the very best developers get on the machine & learn it's ins & outs, it's not worthwhile listening to anything negative they have to say.

I will be buying my PS3 on launch day here in Australia on the simple grounds that I am a glass half full, type personality.

It may not live up to "Toy Story" graphics (no next gen. console will), but it will be considerably closer than what has come before it.

portorikan @ Jan 10th 2006 12:46AM

Is anyone having trouble checking out the website? Why is it down? I'd like to read the article/post.

James O'R @ Jan 10th 2006 2:18AM

I have managed to find his personal website

http://www.joshrobinson.com/

Seems genuine enougth to me

I'm sure if the guy wan't kosher than someone would tell the real Josh Robinson and all hell would break loose.

I cant believe he's breaking any NDA agreement, I mean there was ID's comments recently saying overall the 360 was the better system as well!

Me @ Jan 10th 2006 10:14AM

Yeah he's real alright lol. He doesn't even know that Gundam and Heavenly Sword videos were show at E3 in which his team showed a demo. To prove he was there he even gives and IGN link to the video and Heavenly Sword and Gundam are in it. Totally fake. You ever wonder why this "Josh Robinson" just happened to show up at Joystiq and comment? This article is all over the web but he stops by here and no were else lol. Your all guilible lemmings.

m3mnoch @ Jan 10th 2006 11:17AM

yep. well. what do you expect developers to say? microsoft went to them and said, "what do you want in the console?" going off of that, they built the 360.

sony, however, not only assumed what most developers would want (granted, they have a pretty good idea, so i don't really have a problem with that), but it came shoe-horned with blu-ray and cell. despite the fact that both are really optimal for game consoles.

blu-ray is too expensive for a console to make up for its capacity and the cell is great for multimedia (floating point vs. integer, non-branching, etc.) but not game programming.

-- not to say it's useless, of course. it's not at all. the cell is still a pretty smartly designed chip. it's just that an optimized set of gaming (meaning, focused on games, not movie playback) hardware with fewer mhz can make better (as in performance, not necessarily design) games.

the ps3 isn't optimized for gaming. it's built for movies. it's like they took the umd initiative and blew it up a hundred fold. it's really not a coincidence that sony also has a movie studio.

so, to sum up: it appears that sony has built a living room convergence device focused more on movies and less so on games where microsoft has built a living room convergence device focused on games and less so on movies.

i think i'm happy with that statement.

m3mnoch.

JohnCarm @ Jan 12th 2006 4:24AM

I have no way of confirming if that was the real josh or not, but I will assume it is. Sony really has some die hard fans I must say. Is it so hard for you to believe news even when it comes from a pretty established developer SIMPLY because the news that is kindly shared with you is something you don't wish to hear? Now I don't make it a habit to even post on most forums, but I feel a bit obligated.

Sure the ps3 will be an amazing machine, but there are many aspects in which the ps3 cannot match the 360 and there are areas in which the 360 can't match the ps3 as well, but guess what? The areas in which the ps3 can't match the 360 are the ones that matter the most as far as a developer is concerned. Graphics technology that goes well beyond shader model 3.0 and many directx10 (WGF) requirements, 5 times the memory bandwidth of the ps3, 512MB of memory dedicated to video and system memory (ps3 has 256 to each). I wont even touch on the amazing software development kit available for the 360, but its a shame more people aren't able to experience this thing. All I wish is that microsoft add support for 1080p because the 360's gpu is sure as hell capable of performing at that level, but the 360 is such a great machine that I'll always find myself wondering "WHAT IF" I'd like to be one of many to showcase what the 360 can truly do.

The ps3's gpu is a 78000gtx in a nutshell its going to have to go up against an r600 without beating around the bush. The technology on the 360 gpu is something you wont see on a pc till nvidia's g80 product line (They mention a unified shader architecture, but not much has been released about anything else) or ati's unreleased r600 product line. The 360 gpu even surpasses the ati r580 which is again unreleased.

http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/xenos/index.php?p=09

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzcxLDE=

The second one is most useful to people that aren't so hip on all the fancy tech jargon and is the simplest (accurate) description I can find for just how good a graphics part the 360 is packing.

Check these links and if you actually read any of it you'll quickly find out that the ps3's g70 graphics processor even though an amazing graphics processor can't possibly hope to beat what is running inside that 360.

As the josh said said you wont see the true power of the ps3 till about a year or 2 after, but the same is true for the 360, but the 360 in a year or 2 from now will have much more to show off especially in the graphics department. You don't have to take my word for it just relax wait for the ps3 to launch and wait a year or 2 and you'll be in for a major shock.

I'm sure everyone here still has it burned in the back of their subconcious how killzone looked on that ps3 demo? Well you've seen nothing yet check what the 360 will be able to pump out a year or 2 from now people.

What you see on ea's fight night for the 360 will if any has played the demo will pale in comparison to what things will look like later on. Sure graphics don't make the console it never has if that was the case the xbox would've done alot better than it did, but once more developers start seeing what the 360 is truly capable of there are developers that will venture to challenge themselves to see just how far they can go. There are alot of developers that always feel "there just isn't enough power there just isn't enough power" regardless of how much power they are given, but the 360 will bring them closer to realizing that vision than the ps3 can.

The 360's gpu is capable of going beyond things we would think weren't possible yet in a video game. How do I know this? How can you possibly take my word for it? I'm currently developing for the 360 and I've been working with the ps3 on my own time (more than a normal person would outside of work) and I would highly recommend the 360. You have the right to not buy a word of what i'm saying, but my response is "wait and see"

Graphics don't make the game, but they surely are the biggest attracting point when it comes to modern games in this day and age and if there is a good flow to the story and it has great gameplay you've got a hit.

#36 when you are at an event of that magnitude you can easily miss alot of things that you could only catch via some sort of televised coverage or the typical internet coverage. You think someone like bill gates gets to see more of what is going on at an event like E3 than the people receiving loads of ign coverage at home? The people at home get the majority of the information the people actually there simply get the experience with some sufficient amount of information if you are lucky, but usually not as much as you'd get from ign or other sites like it.

m3mnoch @ Jan 15th 2006 3:47PM

johncarm.

i completely and utterly second that opinion about e3. really, all you end up doing is wandering around, over whelmed as nobody can decide on what to see next. well. that and holding a contest amongst yourselves (nobody goes to e3 alone!) as to who has the hottest booth babe.

the hands on stuff is cool just to say you've done it. even the events (like those silly quake 4 or doom 3 theaters.... i waited 3 hours in line for each of them by the way. mmmmm.... demo goodness.) really aren't news. just a cool theater surround-sound experience.....

which. actually, is probably the way to do it now that i think about it. hmmm.

so, with other hands on stuff, you get 5 or 10 minutes to see the graphics or feel the responsiveness. (starcraft ghost moved like a dumptruck. holy-terrible-batman.) there's really not much in the way of exploring the narrative that can be accomplished.

the theater, however, gives you a great glimpse into the narrative. for example, in the quake 4 theater, my colleagues and i were blown away when the saw came down and chopped you up! there were whoa's and gulp's and sweet's thrown around in the dark. it was totally cool. (tho, you can't really tell how the game contols.)

compare that with any of the consoles you can just walk up and play. so much more memorable.

the other great way to do it, and would be killer for id (hint, hint) to do is the 'game with fame' sort of thing. i enjoyed the hell out of deathmatching with fatality, kornelia and the ubisoft guys. playing fatality was ridiculous -- saw him get a multikill in a one on one match -- absolutely wrong. i almost actually killed kornelia. and the ubisoft team spanked us in black arrow. (tho, half of our team battling in rainbow six were inverted guys and they weren't able to swap the controls.... we totally would have won.)

i mean, in a walk up and play sort of environment, my most memorable one of last years' e3 was playing jaws. simply because you were a shark! and you swam around eating swimmers by the beach! you'd jump up on the beach and flop around devouring life guards. it was cool. lots of gore. raw eating machine carnage. great for a 5 minute experience. the other countless fps or rpgs? all blurs.

maybe that's why graphics play such a big part in a game's e3 showing? well. that and screenshots, i suppose, huh?

the head-to-head booths always do a ton to show off controls. you never notice a lot of the issues when you are just wandering by yourself. it's when you are throwing down in combat that you find yourself shouting "turn, dammit! turn!"

e3 is really just to party with other developers, retail guys and the media folks for a few days. that is, if you are lucky enough to avoid manning the booth. heh.

the media guys have the hard jobs. it's up to them to report back to the community at large. they work tirelessly during e3 and it's easy to see why they all hate it.

and, as backwards as it seems, you always go back to the hotel room and check up on all of the stuff you missed. i've always been too busy collecting swag, oggling booth babes and sneaking in burbon (does that hurt my chances of securing a joystiq media badge this year? heh.) to get much work done. i depend on the good folks at ign or gamespot to actually pay attention and report on all the cool new stuff.

god bless the video games journalists when it comes to e3 and news -- see you all in a few months.

m3mnoch.