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Monday, December 26, 2005

AGS & DE Expo Asia 2005: The Expo That's Not E3

AGS & DE Expo Asia 2005: The Expo That's Not E3

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us"When 90% of your game exposition experience comes from events like E3 in California, it's hard to know what to expect from a game show in Hong Kong. Will it be big or small? Will there be thick crowds or thin?

The 4th Asia Game Show and Digital Entertainment Exposition Asia 2005 is not E3 or CES, though it has elements of both. The show floor is smaller, and though it claims more traffic than E3, it's from a different sort of visitor. Instead of purchasing a single ticket for the full four days of the show, visitors buy tickets for each day individually, check out what is there to see, and then head home. The exposition floor itself is not big enough to offer more than a solid day's exploration, and so more people pass through the event than you might find at E3 in California.

Sony made a strong appearance with a substantial PS3 theater, which unfortunately had no live demonstrations. Having a VIP badge and being ushered to the front of the line without waiting would have been even cooler if they'd shown more than pre-rendered footage of upcoming PS3 titles. Sure, the games looked cool, but without offering much more to the attendees than what we've already seen online or at E3 during last summer, I'm not entirely sure why they wouldn't allow cameras. Some games look more exciting than others, with a few obvious titles targeting Xbox 360 upcoming releases. Gears of War is going to see heavy competition from the PS3's Gears-of-War-meets-Call-of-Duty style titles that we saw at E3. Biohazard 5, also known as Resident Evil 5, is going to be awesome when it hits both the 360 and PS3, that's pretty obvious.

But ultimately, besides being able to stand less than a foot from the PS3 in person, there was little more to do than ogle the system and move on. Because I lost my digital camera the first day I was in town and had to rely on my video camera to produce still images, the quality of my ogling - from your perspective - was even in question. It looks like E3 might be our next real opportunity to see what the PS3 can do, and hopefully by then they'll finally have some substance.

Other interesting elements abound, but few jumped out as being absolutely remarkable... except one, which you don't get to hear about yet. It gets its own series of articles, and doesn't come in the form of a consumer product at all. But you're going to like it, trust me. It's called Pebbles. You'll have to wait to hear about that, though." [more]


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