Sometimes our mouths fill up talking about how bad things are currently, about how companies pour bile at each other, and how among all of them they are killing emblems of this industry such as the E3. And well, there is some reason, but little memory too.
To show one of the E3 crazier than can be remembered. A growing fair that, due to the fact that its rules had not yet been established, delivered moments as mythical as the presentation of sony which lasted two seconds.
The first E3 ever
We are in nineteen ninety five. Michael Jordan returns to the NBA after crashing in baseball, Toy Story becomes the first computer-made movie, and the DVD format is born. A time of great technological advances in which to stand out at CES, the quintessential electronics fair, has too many competitors to stand out easily.
To prevent others from stealing the spotlight, companies like SEGA, Nintendo either sony decide to move their big announcements to a new fair, the Electronic Entertainment Expo or, for that reason of the three, the E3. Lucky it didn’t end up being called “E cubed” as they intended in the first moment.
Due to being halfway between the US east coast and Japan, they decided that Los Angeles would be the perfect place to celebrate the new fair, and the big companies went there with juicy news under their arms.
Nintendo presented its Virtual Boy and dropped several brushstrokes of what would finally be Nintendo 64, Capcom made us know resident EvilEA had a brand new FIFA, Rayman It surprised platform fans thanks to Atari… But if there was something to watch out for, it was SEGA and Sony. They were the two who had the most to win, or lose, at that fair.
A fight that was solved in two seconds
Although SEGA Saturn had already been launched in Japan and some details simply remained to be polished for its arrival in the United States, between games like Panzer Dragon, Daytona USA either Virtua Fighterthe great news that they had prepared for the public and the press was the announcement of the price of the machine on the other side of the pond. Saturn would cost $399.
With the pressure on the shoulders of sonywho arrived at that fair as an external entity and still had to demonstrate what he would be capable of with PlayStationthe presentation of the company could not start in the most soporific way.
First there was a lengthy video on the company’s history in the world of electronics, and then a second tab was added in the form of a talk on CD-ROM technology before giving way to Steve Race, president of Sony America, that he should talk about the price of the machine.
Race took the stage, said 299, and got out of there to applause and cheers. Just a couple of seconds of presentation had been enough for PlayStation took all the spotlights from that first E3. A move that, halfway between trolling and masterful marketing, got the brand’s first console to enter the United States on the best possible footing.
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