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The Biggest E3 Blunders of Them All

The Biggest E3 Blunders of Them All

E3 is upon us. The time of year has come when we all get our computers set up with the best placement for all-nighters. We bring the cooler in close and keep it stocked with energy drinks and snacks so that we don’t miss any of the action. Well, at least that’s what I do, since I’m not going this year. One of the things I look forward to most closely resembles people who watch car racing for the crashes. I watch all the video footage of the show I can just to catch a glimpse of the next eff-up from any of the big companies who think that we’re all just going to throw our money at them after some lame press conference and tons of empty promises that we have all heard before. Yes, I watch E3 for the blunders. Here are some of the best, or worst – depending on how you look at it.

Nintendo Goes to Sleepy-Town

Nintendo Goes to Sleepy-Town

Back in 2008, Nintendo had a grand idea. Rather than telling gamers that Link, Mario, Samus or any other recognizable Nintendo character had a game coming to the Wii, they thought it would be fun to announce completely bland and mundane games like Animal Crossing: City Folk and Wii Music. Seriously? If this press conference had been any more tame, it would have involved the Strawberry Shortcake class reunion, crayons, snacks and then a nap with their comfy blanket. This press conference pissed off so many gamers that CEO Satoru Iwata actually apologized for angering the fans with this lame media briefing.

Gamers Are All Pervs, Right?

Gamers Are All Pervs, Right?

The N-Gage incident is a little bit of a stretch but it’s well worth remembering so that no one ever tries this again. Let’s start with the obvious. If you are going to release a handheld gaming system of any kind, be competitive with your pricing. When your mobile system costs more than some of the home-based consoles of the day, you need to fire everyone on your marketing team and start over. But even if you still believe in your product enough that you still go through with the release, don’t make your press conference look like the opening to the BET awards and hire break dancers for your intro. Then please, oh please, don’t hire a girl who’s barely of the age of consent, throw her a string bikini top, cargo capris and a skate board to wander around the show floor with your devices price written on her tummy. It sends all the wrong signals about what the price is for. But gamers are all pervs anyway, so it doesn’t matter, right? Good job N-Gage. That’s why you’re not around anymore.

Alex Lorenzen, You’re an A-hole!

Alex Lorenzen, You’re an A-hole!

Does anybody remember this guy? Yeah, that’s right, the one who pretended to be disabled so he could get close to the booth babes around the convention and cop a feel without fear of any real retribution. But if that wasn’t bad enough, he then apparently thought that no one in 2005 would be online during the convention and posted over seventy pictures of his borderline sexual assaults on multiple women. He told of his exploits and how playing a disabled person would allow him to figure out which “whores” and other (expletives omitted) he would have a shot at “nailing” later on. Just… don’t be this guy, ok?

Jaime Kennedy Sucks

Jaime Kennedy Sucks

June 2007 is a press conference that will live in infamy among the employees and stakeholders at Activision. It was the year that they almost murdered their fan base with an onslaught of horrible comedy. Actually, you can’t even call it comedy. Let’s call it “Kennedy,” in remembrance of the worst comedian in the world trying to be funny to a crowd that he obviously had no connection to whatsoever. He was a disaster. Actually, to be fair, it’s not really his fault. Activision should have known better than to go looking for their comedians in dumpsters behind strip clubs. Way to go, Activision. Let’s just let the worst comic ever stand on stage and hurl insults at your fans after a night of binge drinking and who knows what else. That’s a great idea.

Who Cares About Ridge Racer

Who Cares About Ridge Racer

In 2006, Sony’s Kaz Hirai flung himself into the annals of gaming idiocy alongside the greats. It was a great show up until he took the stage. Journalists and gamers had been treated to the likes of Halo, Super Mario and other heavyweight titles from other major developers and publishers. When Sony took the press conference stage to announce the PlayStation 3, however, it was a gong show. From “Riiiiidge Racer!” to the infamous “historically accurate” battle with a giant enemy crab, the hits (or rather, misses) kept coming. Seriously, Microsoft had announced a new Halo game and Gears of War and Sony fans got “Riiiiidge Racer!”

The Price You Pay To Play The Game

The Price You Pay To Play The Game

Speaking of Sony’s PlayStation 3 reveal, I would wager that you all remember spitting out your beverage all over your computer screen or TV when you heard how much it was going to cost when it released later that year. This bombshell dropped only moments after Kaz Hirai’s infamous Ridge Racer intro. Things were already going badly for Sony, and add to that the fact that they hadn’t shown anything that looked remotely like a fun video game that would be releasing in close proximity to the console’s release date. Then they hit us with ,“Five hundred ninety-nine US dollars,” and everyone in the audience suddenly started to feel the corner of their eye twitching and their heart rate increase.  It was the heftiest price tag on a console ever.

Avatar – But Not The Real One

Avatar – But Not The Real One

When you think of James Cameron, you probably think of epic films like Aliens or Terminator 2. Or maybe you are like me and every time you hear his name you think of watching Leonardo DiCaprio sliding lifelessly off of a floating door and thinking to yourself, “Seriously Rose, your ass isn’t that big. Scoot over and save your lover’s life instead of being stupid and sappy. There’s plenty of room on that door for both of you!”

But no matter what you think of, I’ll bet you don’t think of E3 in 2009. You know why? Because it was the worst press conference blunder that Jim Cameron could’ve come up with. Apparently he forgot that movies and games are a visual medium and chose to stand in front of the logo to his Avatar film and rap about how good it looked for fifteen minutes but never actually showed anyone in the audience anything about how good it actually looked. To make matters worse, the game ended up being the typical cheap movie cash-in that was only slightly more enjoyable than a root canal procedure without anesthesia.

Well BAM! There It Is

Well BAM! There It Is

Infamous words, spoken by Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunoda as he tried to tease journalists and gamers with a new motion sensing technology called Project Natal. The question he posed seconds before his avatar had a seizure onscreen was, “You ever wonder what the bottom of an avatar’s foot looks like?” And then it happened. His own body betrayed him. He had turned his back to the audience and the onscreen avatar had too. But those movements were taken at a normal, relaxed pace. But in his excitement about showing the bottom of his avatar’s left foot, Kudo swiftly lifted his foot and outran the motion sensor, causing his on-screen self to contort into an intensely painful seizure that twisted its digital body into an online pretzel. The funniest thing is that by the time he looked up to see the avatar’s response, it had already returned to its normal figure and shape. So Kudo was none the wiser until confronted about it by journalists. At which point he took that left foot and started back-pedaling as hard as he could. Kudos, Kudo, you pulled a dumb move.

Pay Your Cheerleaders Better!

Pay Your Cheerleaders Better!

The first Xbox One press conference was supposed to be this great and epic thing. But this generation, Sony had trumped Microsoft at nearly every turn. The big, green, greed machine’s reps had openly stated that they were going to charge gamers for playing used games on their console. They had said that the Kinect would be a required peripheral to use the XBO. They had said you would HAVE to have broadband internet connection to use it. Their system was a hundred bucks more than the PS4 and it had zero games coming out for it at release – at least, none that anyone actually cared about.

Then it happened. Journalists started getting wise to the groups of people scattered throughout the meeting hall that were unfamiliar faces. Ones that were incredibly and unbelievably happy to be hearing the garbage that Microsoft was feeding us. They clapped as we scowled, they cheered as we stared at them. And then, shortly after the conference it was revealed that there were paid “cheerers” in the audience to help salvage their horrible and overly greed-driven presentation.

It Was All Just a Dreamcast

It Was All Just a Dreamcast

All right, here’s one for the older gamers out there. Do you remember the Sega Dreamcast? If you do, do you remember owning one? If you did own one, do you remember there being any actually fun games when the system released? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may have had too much money or your parents spoiled you. For those of you wondering what I’m getting on about, here’s why. In 1995, Sega announced that their system, the Sega Dreamcast, would release a full four months ahead of schedule, making it the first 32-bit system on the market. Now that may not sound like much these days, but back then it was the stuff dreams were made of. There was just one problem. Four months after the Dreamcast launched, the second 32-bit system hit. It was this quirky little grey box called the Sony PlayStation. Oh, and that little grey box was a hundred dollars cheaper than the Dreamcast. This pissed retailers off so bad that many of them refused to even carry Sega products anymore. This led to the slow and painful death of the Dreamcast. But hey, at least we got to play Shenmue.

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