What is E3? A brief history

June 10, 5:27 AMPhoenix Console Game ExaminerJosh Romero

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E3 2009 attendees look at a giant James Cameron's Avatar robot display.
Taken at Ubisoft's booth. -AP Photo/Jae C. Hong-

If you haven't heard of E3, it stands for "Electronic Entertainment Expo" (three E's, see?) and it is the biggest American videogame tradeshow. And possibly the biggest videogame tradeshow in the world.

That actually is the title E3 used to hold, but starting in 2007 the show downsized to "better fit the needs of the industry". This was due to the show's size, girth, glam and flash which had taken its toll on companies who saw E3 as too loud, too distracting and too expensive.

The downsizing however turned out to effect the image of the show negatively and there was a backlash from those who saw E3 as the videogame equivalent of the MTV Music Awards; i.e. a spotlight that is put onto the industry as a whole, attracting the mainstream media that doesn't normally cover videogames and proving that gaming can hang with the big boy media (music, TV, movies).

After the backlash to the 2007 E3 downsized show, several other international shows gained more prominence; such as the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany and the Tokyo Game Show in Japan. Even the humble PAX (started by the Penny Arcade.com guys) in Washington State. PAX started out as a small fan show but nearly took over for E3 in 2008 by drawing all the big name companies. Whom made major announcements and showed off their titles there in addition to E3. Some companies even announced new ones at PAX, a first for the PAX show. This proved to be a double-whammy to E3 since PAX, unlike E3, is also open to the public.

However even through all of this, the E3 name still holds weight and the big three companies still see it as THE place to make their major announcements for the year and to show off their biggest upcoming games.

For the 2009 E3 show which took place last week, the show had re-invented itself once again into a more spectacle driven show like the E3 of old. As always the big three game companies (Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) each held a press conference to show off their latest and best games.

In case you missed the big press conferences themselves and all the announcements of new console games from the show itself, I'll be posting about them to get everyone up to speed in the week to follow.