After last year's detour to Santa Monica, E3 returned this year to its traditional home at the L.A. Convention Center. But the more things stay the same, the more they change, as they say (if they're a bit confused). Despite the return to the old location, much of this year's E3 had an empty, ghost town feeling when compared to E3s past. The general lack of participating developers and publishers, combined with the strict, invite-only attendee list combined to make a show that seemed incredibly small in the incredibly large convention center. To see just how small, check out our "E3, then and now" gallery, which compare scenes from previous E3s to similar scenes from this year's show.

[Update 4: The ESA has issued a press release addressing the situation. Read more here.]

Next-Gen has the scoop: Doug Lowenstein, the president of the Entertainment Software Association is expected to announce within the next 48 hours that E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the definitive video games show, has been cancelled. Industry sources have told Next-Gen that the reasoning behind this move is primarily one of cost versus return. Publishers aren't getting the media attention that they expect from the large amounts of cash that they're putting down to exhibit at the show.

Apparently publishers believe that the multi-million dollar budgets allocated to E3 would be better used on smaller, specific shows where publishers get all the limelight. There's the possibility of a smaller show taking place in May next year, but as Next-Gen puts it, "it's clear that the days of an industry event attended by all the major publishers, spending big money, are gone."

Check out our commentary on the cancellation at the continued link below.

In case you missed it on Friday, IGN posted a pre-E3 hands-on preview of Guitar Hero II's new co-op mode. It's a departure from the first game's multiplayer mode in that the two players have to depend on each other a lot more to pass each song and thereby make beautiful music together.

While the old multiplayer option will still be around in the sequel, the new mode mixes distinct lead guitar and bass or rhythm parts where each player affects the other in various ways, whether by failing if either performance slips (as in DDR), sharing the same Rock Meter (with mistakes from either player resetting the score multiplier), and needing to both go vertical at the same time to activate the shared Star Power. Thankfully, different difficulty levels can be assigned to each player.

The Joystiq team out in L.A. will probably find something to do until they get their sweaty paws on a guitar controller or two on the E3 show floor (maybe one of those wacky press conferences will help pass the time), but we're sure the wait to try the latest build of this rockin' series will be worth it. The seven songs available at E3 are listed below.

[Thanks, murph]