My thoughts regarding E3 this year can be summarized in one word: pride. I'm so proud of the great job that the NWR team did at the show, an event that most of them had never previously attended. Even though I was off on vacation, I managed to keep up with the site a little bit and was astounded at the sheer amount of coverage we provided. Heck, we're still posting videos and impressions a week later! It was truly an exemplary team effort that all of the attendees and home teamers should be very proud. Next year will be even better.

As for the show itself, it was great to see E3 get back to being the game industry's version of the Super Bowl. I think the industry really needs a big show, like E3, as a rallying point to showcase everything it has to offer. Video gaming in general is often characterized by outsiders (and especially politicians) as some sort of back-room social evil, and E3 is a crucial way to demonstrate the passion and dedication to the pastime that we all share. It's also proof positive of the incredible popularity and media clout that interactive entertainment now wields. Back in the late 90's nobody would have thought that you'd see Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr at an E3 press conference. That's just how big the industry is nowadays.

Nintendo's press conference did not disappoint, at least initially. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a great announcement, as is New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Metroid: Other M was both shocking and exciting at the same time. However, after the dust settled I realized that Nintendo's lineup for holiday 2009 is still pretty thin. Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. Wii are pretty much it in terms of big releases. These games will certainly make Nintendo a ton of money, but as a Nintendo fan I still feel like something is missing.

Fortunately, Nintendo has an avalanche of must-have Wii titles in the pipeline for 2010, and releases like The Conduit and Wii Sports Resort will surely keep my attention this summer. Meanwhile, the DS keeps chugging along with quality titles like Mario & Luigi 3 and Scribblenauts, and the release of the DSi ensures that the platform will be relevant for years to come. Nintendo is on top of the world, and their somewhat conservative E3 press conference reflected this fact. They simply don't have anything more to prove at this point.

Microsoft and Sony both had press conferences that went pretty much as I expected, although Sony did throw in their Final Fantasy XIV curveball (I'm a big MMORPG fan, so color me intrigued). The PSP Go looks cool and my love of gadgetry means I'll pick one up eventually, but it's not a must-have. What I found amusing was that every company showed off some sort of wacky new technology (Microsoft and Sony's motion control solutions, Nintendo's Vitality Sensor), yet none of them showed any real games for said technologies. Of course, afterwards each company turned around and criticized everybody else for not having any games to show for their new technologies. Ah, the PR wars of the game industry.

I was thinking the other day how great it is to be a video gamer in 2009. For the first time in the history of the industry we have three consoles surviving in the marketplace. Nintendo is riding high and bringing new gamers into the fold, while Microsoft and Sony are serving the needs of core gamers better than we've ever seen (and both of them have respectable userbases, all chest-thumping aside). I own all three consoles and I don't have enough time to play all of the great games that are out there. E3 really drove this fact home; each press conference had something for everyone in varying degrees. It will be interesting to see where we're at next year as we get deeper into the emerging trend of the "extended console lifecycle". See you next year from the show floor!