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The cringey monstrosities of E3 in Generation 7

Yoboman

Member
Gen 7 was special, if not for the games but for the sheer power of cringe that every E3 produced. And time has done it no favours

We may never see its like again

Many agree it kicked off with the epic of Sony E3 2006




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Classics such as $599, Riiidge Racer and Giant Enemy Crabs spawned from this conference. But most importantly, it defined that a conference should be a meme

E3 2007 was all about horrid presenters for the third parties. May I present you Jamie Kennedy



His presenter awkwardness only to be later matched by Ubisofts Mr Caffeine in E3 2011



Nintendo were dominating the sales charts at the time. And for them, dominating E3 cringe was just as important as they demonstrated at E3 2008. Really setting the stage for some of the monstrosities to come



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The mother of all cringe conferences came from Konami at E3 2010. It was so bad it is actually the best conference of all time


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Microsoft of course, was not to be outdone. They would offer us years of entertainment to come. E3 2009, E3 2010, E3 2011, E3 2012 and it even blended into the new generation. I dont know how to describe it other than a beautiful half decade of E3 cringe. Kinect was a special beast

From the faked demos to the cringe stage actors. This dominated E3 stage shows for years




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For better or worse, these dark days are largely behind us. But we will always remember
 

The Shift

Banned
Well if anything it was an entertaining time - on many and varied levels. Far from the droll, safe and by the numbers industry of today.
 

mcz117chief

Member
The breadth and quantity of what MS delivered in cringe is really astounding. I can only take my hat off to them

Most of these companies just tried to avoid being cringey again. Some just stopped doing E3 conferences ever again

MS leaned into it hard
Microsoft itself is kind of ok but specifically the Kinect is just on another level entirely. All their demos looked terrible, even with all the preparation and only showing "the good stuff", the products was just that fucking terrible. Look at Steel Battalion on Kinect, the game looks amazing and would have been very cool on PS Move (which honestly works perfectly, it tracks incredibly well) but no, it only got released on Kinect and it got like 20 on metacritic because it was unplayable.
 
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German Hops

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
lol, wtf ever happened to Jamie Kennedy?

that dude was drunk off his ass..:messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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LMJ

Member
Generation 7 was a console run that no publisher was really prepared for sans nintendo...

The high cost and difficulty of programming for next gen machines made both the PS3 and 360 a major headache and one of the main reasons we had such wonderfully silly moments like the one above

Ah, the generation of brown and bloom, glad it's gone lol
 

Yoboman

Member
Generation 7 was a console run that no publisher was really prepared for sans nintendo...

The high cost and difficulty of programming for next gen machines made both the PS3 and 360 a major headache and one of the main reasons we had such wonderfully silly moments like the one above

Ah, the generation of brown and bloom, glad it's gone lol
It was like everyone got a shit load of money all of a sudden and had monkeys in the marketing departments
 

ripeavocado

Banned
Kinect may have been the Dark Age for Xbox but they are not out of Dark Times yet and at this point I think they never will.

Kinect was super cringe but in the end it wasn't a bad product, the problem is that is went to replace almost everything else for a while.
 

Damigos

Member
The always online, fee to rent, validate after 24 hours etc of MS E3 2013 is the most embarrasing moment of the industry that i know of
 

carlosrox

Banned
These were all comedy gold.

I've always loved that Sony E3 2006 video in the OP. I watch it every now and then for a good laugh.

Sony, MS, and Nintendo definitely had their share of embarrassments that gen.
 
To think that MS went from:

Peter Moore GTA tattoo
Halo reveals
Gears reveals
Smashing it out of the park with game reels

to

"Fist bump"
Little girl tickling tiger balls
out of sync Star wars
Tv Tv Tv

Is sickening.

And the Xbox One reveal was, without exaggeration, the biggest disconnect between company and customer, i have ever seen. How did they get it so, so wrong? $1 billion dollars on an NFL exclusive to one country, on a games console that was weaker than the competition because they'd blown their budget on needless shit . JFC :messenger_tears_of_joy:

It still stings
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
2013 was probably my favorite. Microsoft's stuff was one long comedy of errors while Sony basically just let them fall on their face and took advantage. It made for hilarious memes.

Microsoft's DRM fiasco rightfully took center stage, but it was their focus on TV that I found most fascinating. Gamers by that time tended to be forward thinking, early adopters, and it was clear even to the tech layman that streaming was taking over and cable was going to largely remain in the realm of the boomers. I remember watching Microsoft focusing on all that TV shit thinking "do they honestly think any of us watching from home or sitting in that audience give a shit about any of this? Who the hell greenlit this in 2013?".

That was the last great E3. It's been rather sanitized and safe since then.
 
E3 underwent such a weird evolution, from being the coolest fucking thing ever in the 90s and early to mid 2000s, to mostly being known for embarrassing, unintentionally funny bullshit.

I'd still give my left nut to go back in time and attend E3 2002 or 2003 though.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
That "Dark age of Xbox" video... LOL

I'd love to say that they just got carried away with unrealistic expectations for what the tech offered, but truthfully I cannot.

If it was obvious to me day #1 what its limitations were, there had to be people within MS who also knew from the start what a lemon it was. The way they continued to push it with increasingly blatant fake demos and marketing tells me they simply didn't care.

With hindsight I suspect Kinect hurt Xbox One more than anything. More than TVTVTV, more than any concern over DRM, or power discrepancy.
 

Robins

Member
Some of these interviews really make me wonder how they get to those positions. So unprofessional. That Activision one is crazy.
 

kuncol02

Banned
To think that MS went from:

Peter Moore GTA tattoo
Halo reveals
Gears reveals
Smashing it out of the park with game reels

to

"Fist bump"
Little girl tickling tiger balls
out of sync Star wars
Tv Tv Tv

Is sickening.

And the Xbox One reveal was, without exaggeration, the biggest disconnect between company and customer, i have ever seen. How did they get it so, so wrong? $1 billion dollars on an NFL exclusive to one country, on a games console that was weaker than the competition because they'd blown their budget on needless shit . JFC :messenger_tears_of_joy:

It still stings
XBox wasn't weaker because they blown budget on needles shit. It was weaker because MS played safe and from start designed it as console with 8gb of RAM. That means they had to go with DDR3 (and as effect had to use part of transistor budget to create eSRAM) because that much of GDDR5 was prohibitively expensive when that decision was made. Sony at beginning wanted to make 4gb console and were lucky that RAM prices fell as much as they did which allowed them to use 8g of GDDR5. That was huge gamble on their side.
I don't know if you realize that, but XOne APU was bigger than PS4 one. It also run on higher frequencies which makes it's production even more costly due to lower yields.
 

Jerm411

Member
2013 was probably my favorite. Microsoft's stuff was one long comedy of errors while Sony basically just let them fall on their face and took advantage. It made for hilarious memes.

Microsoft's DRM fiasco rightfully took center stage, but it was their focus on TV that I found most fascinating. Gamers by that time tended to be forward thinking, early adopters, and it was clear even to the tech layman that streaming was taking over and cable was going to largely remain in the realm of the boomers. I remember watching Microsoft focusing on all that TV shit thinking "do they honestly think any of us watching from home or sitting in that audience give a shit about any of this? Who the hell greenlit this in 2013?".

That was the last great E3. It's been rather sanitized and safe since then.

The 2013 Sony E3 conference is still my fav. of all time....Jack Trenton...Radioactive...the Shu/Boyes video....$399.

An absolute bloodbath, the entire industry changed that night...crazy to think about, MS has never fully recovered.
 

AJUMP23

Member
What was the booth babe situation during this time? All I cringe about is sweaty guys without good hygiene getting photos with the booth babes.
 
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