In which David becomes enraged by the term, 'Next Generation'...
"One of the talking points of the show is Sony's PSP. Interestingly the whole of Los Angeles seems to be sold out of PSPs, and yet people really want them - the demand must be amazing, and despite the Gameboy Micro, Nintendo must be looking over their shoulder a little nervously. It is very prominent on Sony's giant stand - and for the first time Sony are showing off three machines.
"The main thing of note is the new fifth generation, or 'Next Generation' machines as they seem to be almost ubiquitously known (this has annoyed me for a long time - we are in a permanent state of 'Next Generation' machines it seems; Playstation 2 and Xbox were 'Next Generation' only a year or so ago). The queue for Sony's PS3 (shown pseudo-privately, presumably to raise anticipation) snaked all round Sony's stand, so clearly it is attracting deserved attention.
"I think comment on the three contenders is a bit pointless at this stage; their success will very much depend on the eventual games rather than details of Terraflops, Gigahertz, Megabytes, which has been done to death elsewhere, anyway. All that can realistically be shown at this stage is imagery, and this seems unlikely to be where the main 'Next Generation' (Grr) fight will be.
"I'd like to close on one thing that people outside the games industry probably do not realise about shows like E3: for many it is a succession of meetings in loud, hot rooms, with snatched time to see the show between meetings, which results in much traipsing around seeing brash displays of games you saw here last year, but you still look around in hope for the odd gem. For those people outside the industry it is an unfulfilled dream. For those inside it can be nightmarish at times - but I still enjoy it! Mostly."
