Dave disses E3 2006

An E3 of this magnitude doesn't come very often. Two new consoles made official playable debuts, while a third finally hit its stride. All told, though, there was plenty to complain about; being a three-year E3 vet, I've learned to see the bad in the greatest gaming show on Earth. To that end, I've compiled the biggest mistakes of the biggest companies.

Sony: Six hundred bucks is a steal compared to the rest of the Blu-ray bunch, but next to to the current console crop, it's a tough bill to pay. No successful console has ever launched at a price that high--equally pricey and ambitious systems such as the Panasonic 3DO and the SNK Neo-Geo stand as proof. Sony does have the experience that those companies lack, though. If the company pushes the next-gen video-player aspect of the system and quietly kills off the awful $500 bundle, it may be able to compete in this round of the console wars. Despite the punishment it's taken for "borrowing" the Wii's motion sensitivity, the company should still push on in that regard, making games such as Warhawk that are more natural and easier to use than the competition's.

Nintendo: Look, I think Nintendo had a spectacular show, and I had a lot of fun trying out the Wii. That doesn't mean the system's perfect, though. The company had a golden opportunity to pull the rug out from under Sony by announcing a much lower price point, but it lost it. The system, while enjoyable, had some faults. It says something that every Wii kiosk was manned by a Nintendo rep that had to painstakingly explain how to control their respective game. This control method's supposed to be simple? As enjoyable as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was, I couldn't help but think, "Man, this would be a lot more fun on the GameCube." Kudos to the company for putting on a good show with the DS Lite, though. Its first-party wares completely outshined the rather meager PSP offerings.

Microsoft: Again, another missed opportunity to capitalize on the high PS3 pricing--a price drop for the 360 or a low price for the HD-DVD add-on would have put the system in a prime position to take a commanding head start. The company that owned E3 2005 had a rather understated year--there were some excellent games on display such as Gears of War and my personal favorite, Just Cause, but the company just couldn't bring the big news on Sony's and Nintendo's scale.