E3, the New Console Generation — and Home?
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
You could feel the excitement all of last week in Home. E3 had arrived and the undercurrent of both curiosity and apprehension was clearly evident as many worried about the fate of Home in the next generation PlayStation 4. With the Electronic Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, now concluded, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the history of this event.
E3 has been around for seventeen years now. It was started in 1996 when gaming was truly beginning to crest again in the world of electronic fun. Gaming had taken a short popularity hiatus when many of the new titles coming out lacked any uniqueness and a lot of young people got bored and started looking elsewhere for entertainment.
E3 is considered the biggest event in the gaming world by many, though there are others out there like Gamescom. This is because unlike other gaming conventions, E3 is by invitation only. You have to have a connection to the gaming industry to attend. You can be part of the developers’ side or part of the media, like this magazine, but you have to have the credentials to be invited.
Konami booth circa 2005
E3 was created by the International Digital Software Association, now known as the Entertainment Software Association and IDG Infotainment World as a place where the leading developers could showcase their newest products to those within the industry and the press. It coincided at the time with the release of a new generation of consoles: PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Virtual Boy, and Neo-Geo CD. The Nintendo 64 was announced but no hardware was shown. The convention ran from May 11 through May 13, 1996 and was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It was one of the largest trade shows in history with 1.2 million feet of showroom and over eighty thousand attendees.
The E3 always runs for three days and has always been held at the LA Convention Center with the exception of 2007 when it was held in San Diego. It is held in late May or early June each year and hosts all of the major developers of the gaming industry. Media coverage of the event started out quite limited, with only documented professional journalists allowed. As the gaming community has grown, many others have been given access, including online gaming magazines, bloggers and fansites. This has helped to connect E3 to the public through the growing industry of social media.
There were some some big games brought out at this year’s conference, including Gran Turismo 6 and a new game from the makers of Halo called Destiny. Destiny will be available for play on the PS3 and PS4 both. This marks the first time that Bungie has stepped outside of the Xbox and brought their new game to both consoles. The most highly anticipated game from Sony is The Last of Us, an incredibly rich looking RPG hybrid from the makers of Uncharted that came out this week.
Bethesda Games has three new games coming out within the next year, including Elder Scrolls Online, The Evil Within and Wolfenstein – The New Order, a refashioning of a popular older game series. Other notable games are Call of Duty: Ghosts, Thief, Ubisoft’s Watch_Dogs, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, InFamous: Second Son and Tekken Revolution a new free to play fighting game exclusively found on the PS3 for download starting now.
Up until now if you wanted to watch E3 on your PS3 you had to go into Home and go to the E3 theater site. This year they allowed us to watch the event from outside of Home, which was a great tool for people who didn’t have a computer and find Home too laggy because of the onslaught of people using the theater.
E3 in all its splendor.
This year has been a very exciting one with both Sony and Microsoft bringing out their next generation consoles. People were on the edge of their seats in Home, wondering if Home would even be mentioned, and if it was, in what context. I had hoped that they would say something at least, whether good or bad to alleviate some of the rumor and speculation that has been flying around Home like a homing pigeon with no destination, but it was not to be. They did mention that all of PS3’s content would be ported over to the PS4, so that is a ray of hope perhaps.
When it comes to the virtual E3 booth created in Home this year, it has all of the same elements as last years offering. Simply follow the beams of light and you will get all of the rewards. Some of the rewards are silly like always, but there are some very nice ones as well to acquire. There are some great codes available, for everything from themes to a free month of PS Plus (though this only works for new Plus users, it won’t add a month on to an existing subscription). There also seems to be a glitch that forces you to restart and do all of the quests again if you leave the area for any reason, so until they fix that plan on staying until you finish.
E3 packed quite a punch this year. If you missed anything, don’t worry – just look for the segments that Sony will be posting to You Tube as quickly as possible. And we’ll see what happens to Home.
June 17th, 2013 by Burbie52 | 3 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
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Whatever news about Home on PS4 is going to have side effects to it. First one is they release a brand new version of home on PS4, side effects users that are switching to PS4s stop spending on PS3 home now and developers start developing for the future and PS3 version gets left to rot when some the community and all the developers go off to they new PS4 version. They dont release anything like home on PS4. Home will just wither and die at some point, developers will start looking outside home for sales so updates will have less and less in them. They take the existing home and put it on PS4 seems the best bet as the issues currently faced in home by its users isnt because of console. side effects to this are it would just be a migration of users as and when they wanted to. Remember that most playstation users dont use home. Never heard a company putting in they ads. Look our brand new product with some older parts there that most dont know it exists or have every used it. So why would any company release news yet when most of the effect it has, can only really be bad or have no effect at all. Currently users are still spending and are hoping for news. Ultimately we are where we need to be.
I believe Home will be on PS4 but not right away. The developers on PS3 Home have a long time left to ply their trade and make some money here and we as consumers have a long time to enjoy what they create.
Home may be around on PS3 for as long as another five years, and I have said it many times, for me Home is the people in it, not the stuff we buy.
If there is a new Home on PS4 a few years from now, it will probably be a whole new Home, not the same one we have now. The foundations for this one are way too old to be supported on the newer version, as are all of the items being created.
Not buying in Home now is a mistake. Consider it like purchasing a ticket to a movie or a sporting event, the entertainment is there while you watch and experience it, but the minute you walk out the door all you have is the memories it created. Home is much the same type of experience, so enjoy it while you can, and enjoy each minute you can create there and spend with the people you have met and come to love.
Nice read Burbie,
It’s sad that G4 is done. Spike did a good job with coverage, but it only covered up until prime time then switched over to some dumb repeat instead of show the Sony conference. I’m hoping next year will get better coverage. I also agree with you about Home.
I feel that it will be on the PS4 down the road, I mean why not, they plan on streaming PS One titles that are of very poor graphics quality, and as long as Home keeps making money I think it’s a no brainier.