The Electronic Entertainment Expo is one of the largest conventions in the world. The annual show that takes place in June in Los Angeles, brings together game developers and publishers of all sizes to discuss their upcoming projects. And because everyone's eyes are on the convention, game companies love to take advantage of the attraction to blow everyone away with giant, shocking announcements.

Every year there are a few mind-blowing revelations, be it the first showing of a new game or the announcement of an entirely new console. Some surprises, however, are larger than others, and we've pulled together the biggest of the big to get you excited for this year's show.

In a 2007 interview with Edge, Valve boss Gabe Newell had some rather harsh words to say about the PlayStation 3. After calling it a "waste of everybody's time," he said "I don't think they're going to make money off their box. I don't think it's a good solution. I'd say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a do over." That's what made his surprise appearance at Sony's 2010 press conference so shocking - after opting to skip over the console on the two Left 4 Dead games, Newell took the stage to eat a nice, steamy dish of crow.

Newell took to the show to admit how much Sony had turned things around over the years, and to reveal that Portal 2 would not only be coming to the system, but that it would be the better of the two console versions. It'd be getting full Steam support, and offer cross-platform play with PC versions. This ended up coming back to bite him when the PSN hacking and outages came to light right as Portal 2 released, raining all over their parade, but it was still an important - and surprising - moment.

At E3 2009, Reggie Fils-Aime closed out Nintendo's press conference by bringing up the different strategies Nintendo could employ. Should they bring back old franchises? Should they employ the services of popular developers? Should they work on more adult-focused games? The answer, he said, was to do it all. The lights dropped, and the trailer for Metroid: Other M began to roll.

It was the perfect trailer for the reveal, too. It started by showing off the Team Ninja logo, which immediately piqued everyone's interests, and then rolled into clips of Samus - without her suit - talking about her past. It wasn't for some time before we realized that it was, indeed, a Metroid game, at which point the gaming community lost its collective mind. Sure, the game ended up being a disappointment, but at the time it sounded like an awesome idea.

1995 was E3's first year, and several major announcements set the tone for the convention's future. One such bombshell came during Sony's PlayStation press conference, where Sony commanded the attention of industry professions to reveal the price of its highly anticipated console's US debut. Earlier in the convention Sega had already picked a $399 price point for the Saturn (as well as making another shocking announcement which we'll get in to later), thinking that it would be, in a way, setting the price for the generation. It was wrong.

At Sony's presser, the soon-to-be game giant revealed a $299 price for the PlayStation. Revealing a $100 price gap between the two systems was a huge blow to Sega, and, in a way, set the standard for gaming consoles moving forward. Too bad Sony completely forgot about that when it launched the PlayStation 3 at $599. Oops.

Though the original Xbox launched with a built-in modem and the capability to play games online with Xbox Live, not every publisher signed on right away. One notable omission was Electronic Arts, who opted to put its online multiplayer chips in Sony's pile, despite the system requiring an optional attachment to play. This changed at E3 2004, when EA brought Muhammad Ali, St. Louis Rams running back Marshall Faulk, and Denver Nugget Carmelo Anthony to Microsoft's press conference to make a surprise announcement.

EA would be bringing its games to Xbox Live, meaning you'd be able to play games like Madden, Need for Speed, and FIFA online on Xbox. Online play had, for a short while, been thought to be another element of exclusivity that could be passed back and forth between consoles, but the biggest publisher announcing it would be spreading its web was a symbolic end to this idea. And bringing the sports stars on stage was actually a fairly classy move - game companies love to trot around celebrities for no real reason (like when Activision tapped Jamie Kennedy to host their press conference), but this one actually made sense, and was handled well.

Every generation needs "that game" - you know the one. The one that proves exactly why everyone had to fork over a few hundred dollars for new hardware. In 2005, Sony revealed that game. It showed off an amazing trailer for Killzone 2 that was too good to be true. It feature graphics that looked several generational leaps forward, and significantly better than anything else that had been shown off for the Xbox 360. But... seriously. It looked way too good to be true because it was. It wasn't real, it was completely CGI that Sony attempted to pass off as actual footage at the time.

It took a little while for Sony to admit that it was projected footage of what it expected the game to look like, so we all just assumed that it was nonsense. That was, until 2007, when Sony, again, showed off footage from the game, and while it wasn't quite up to snuff with the 2005 test footage, it was significantly closer than anyone expected. By the time the game came out it had just about matched the initial test footage, forcing everyone to eat their words in a big, fancy, all-you-can-eat buffet.

For the entirety of the PlayStation and PlayStation 2's lifespan, Final Fantasy was a PlayStation brand. FFVII to XII, on consoles, could only be experienced on Sony's system, and no one had any reason to believe that Final Fantasy XIII, which was revealed originally for the PS3, would be any different. But it was - at E3 2008, Microsoft revealed that the exclusivity we had all assumed would continue forever was gone, and that the 360 version of FFXIII would be appearing day and date with the PS3 one.

Seriously no one saw this coming. Microsoft had sniped Grand Theft Auto's (timed) exclusivity a few E3s prior, but this was Final Fantasy - it was holy ground, and Microsoft treading on it meant that the age of exclusives was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

1995 marked the start of the Electronics Entertainment Expo, a convention that would grow to be one of the largest in North America. The inaugural discussions centered around the upcoming Sega Saturn, set for a September 2 launch, and the PlayStation, Sony's first foray into gaming, which was scheduled for release on September 9. During the show (which was in May, not June), Sega's CEO Tom Kalinske took the stage and revealed something so absurdly shocking that it makes every other E3 surprise look meager in comparison: due to "consumer demand," the Saturn, which was still four months away, would be released early. Four months early. It was actually already in stores.

"Many Americans have gone to the extent of paying $800 and more for Sega Saturn units from Japan," Kalinske said during the show. "We've decided to bring the product to market earlier than scheduled to meet the high consumer demand, to refine our marketing strategy over the summer, prior to the important fall season, and to get a headstart on the competition."

Never mind the fact that many of the launch games weren't... ready, or that retailers weren't exactly prepared. It was awesome at the time!

But the past is the past, and it's time to look to the future. E3 is only a week away, and we're going to be bringing you all the news, previews, and stories from the show, so be sure to check back for all of the E3 news you can physically handle.

Be sure to let us know what E3 shockers you're hoping to hear this year in the comments below, too!

And if you want to read about more E3 goodness to get pumped for the show, check out our E3 rumor roundup and check out our top 100 games of all time to get yourself ready for new game announcements.