The event kicked off at midday on Friday with a performance by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra. After the stunning performance by the orchestra, Nintendo's Greg Arthurton presented a keynote speech concentrated on Wii. Rather than focus on the future for Wii, Greg focused more on the present, demonstrating games such as Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Super Mario Galaxy. Likewise, rather than present a keynote on the future of PlayStation 3, Sony flew two Insomniac developers in to talk about their latest PlayStation 3 title, Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction. Even though it was a Friday, there were plenty of people in attendance, but the crowds really started to pile in on the Saturday.
Sony's shipping container.
While the main stage's activities weren't quite as appealing on the Saturday there was plenty to do on the show floor, if you could find space. Nintendo was showing off games like Link's Crossbow Training, Super Mario Galaxy and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, but people were even lining up to play already released games such as Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Wii Sports. Nintendo also had several Nintendo DS's setup playing games such as Sight Training and already released games like DK: Jungle Climber.
Even though Nintendo had a huge presence it was really Sony who took the show. The company had a shipping container set up which featured several televisions and PlayStation 3's playing unreleased titles such as Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Assassin's Creed, Wipeout HD and Pain. The company also had a massive Bravia television set up in a lounge area where a Singstar tournament was the highlight. Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction was also demoed on the television and Sony also played several trailers for upcoming games. The PSP also got a bit of attention, with games such as God of War: Chains of Olympus, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice and The Simpsons Game on show.
Microsoft's showing was a little more disappointing though. The Halo head which made a show at Game1 was recycled, and Microsoft only had a few Xbox's set-up, mainly playing Halo 3, which was as popular as ever. Mass Effect was on display, but we were told we weren't allowed to play it. It is a little disappointing that Microsoft didn't go to more effort to have a large presence at the show, especially with such a good Christmas line-up. Games such as Scene It? and Viva Piñata: Party Animals could have benefited from a little more exposure.
There were also several other third party publishers in attendance at the expo. Ubisoft had the largest presence of any of the third party publishers, bringing along a Haze car and showing off the very very popular Assassin's Creed, Haze, Beowulf, Naruto: Rise of a Ninja and Rayman Raving Rabbids 2. It was quite an impressive showing for Ubisoft, especially considering the publisher didn't have much of a presence at all last year. Atari were also in attendance and held a Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 tournament - however, no other games were showed off by the publisher which was a little disappointing, even though PES 2008 was as popular as ever. D3 was also showing off Dark Sector, one of the first "announced" next generation games, which was revealed a few years ago. The company was also showing off the rather impressive PSP exclusive Dead Head Fred as well.
There were also several other things to do at the expo for those who wanted a bit of a break from just playing games. For starters, there were several retailers at the expo who were selling consoles and games. Arcade Gaming Australia brought along several arcade machines that were put on free play, which was a crowd puller. The colleges were also back in force for those who wanted to look into a career in gaming. Deakin University even hopped on stage and demoed their motion capture studio - in what was news to us, their motion capture studio was used for some of the motion capture in Fury. QANTAM and the University of Ballarat were also on hand to help out those who had any questions.
PALGN's booth with an extremely good looking man..
Meanwhile at the PALGN booth we were giving away free demos of WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008 as well as several other goodies including Xbox 360 faceplates and other related merchandise. PALGN also had a television playing trailers supplied by DVDFeed. A big thanks must also go to our forum member DeathFalcon for supplying a television and an Xbox 360 for the event.
Overall, it was clear that the Games and Entertainment Expo was a huge success. With such a huge showing of unreleased games and such a large attendance, the Expo has already taken large leaps towards becoming a world class videogame event. If you want to catch up with everything that happened at eGames 07, then why not head over to our hub.
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