E3: The good stuff

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A look back at the 12 showcases that shaped gaming

Silver bullet

Without doubt, E3 2005 was dominated by the unveiling of PlayStation 3 at Sony's pre-show event. A wide-eyed audience was wowed by a series of tech demos and sneak previews from several titles currently in development for the PS2's successor. It remained a moot point throughout the week as to whether the footage witnessed was actually a true representation of in-game graphics the machine would be capable of producing, or whether they were just - incredibly impressive - pre-rendered movies. Only time would tell...

Microsoft's sleeves were comparatively empty, having revealed Xbox 360 onMTV the week before E3 while releasing a steady trickle of 'leaked' info from the Ourcolony.net viral marketing site. Various Microsoft representatives, including J Allard and Robbie Bach, repeated several times throughout the event that their machine would be "the most powerful next-generation console", although they offered no corroborating evidence.

And then came Nintendo - who had absolutely no interest in making the most powerful next-gen console - and despite revealing its GameCube successor Revolutionand a new handheld, Game Boy Micro, its conference was a real damp squib with no indication of its latest console's motion-sensing magic.

Matt Cundy
Matt Cundy
I don't have the energy to really hate anything properly. Most things I think are OK or inoffensively average. I do love quite a lot of stuff as well, though.