Joystiq at DigitalLife 2006
DigitalLife was a huge four day consumer trade show in New York City about upcoming technology and video games. (And it happened almost a week ago-- Blame my tardiness on Microsoft's open bar at their afterparty.) Attendees and members of the press were treated to demonstrations of the upcoming HD movie formats, new 1080p monitors, interesting streaming technologies, robots, and more. The biggest draw for people like myself were the games, and they were quite plentiful. Many unreleased games were on display, such as Final Fantasy XII and Elebits for the Wii. But the one thing that drew in the largest crowds had to be the PlayStation 3, playable to the public.
Read on to see tons of video and pictures from the event...
Featured Videos
PlayStation 3
"It's like candy." But isn't the Xbox 360 also candy?
Event Montage
All montage videos need techno music, right?
Other Videos
Microsoft's Mark Coates on Xbox Live Arcade
Sega's Ben Harrison on Sonic and the Secret Rings
Sonic's 15th birthday party
Konami's Matt Knoles on Death Jr. 2
Hands-on Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
Electric new Elebits footage
Sega's Yosuke Moriya on Sonic Rivals
More Xbox 360 videos from DigitalLife
Sony launched the show with a keynote about their "true HD" products. Stan Glasgow, President and COO of Sony Electronics stated firmly: "1080p is TRUE HD! Microsoft is the sux0rz!!!!1"
Look at the smug look on his face as he shows off the publically playable PS3...
Of course, winning "Best of Show" will make anyone seem smug.
Sony picks up their trophy.
The Electronic Arts keynote was easily the best one of the bunch. Bing Gordon, CCO of EA, spoke about the future of games, and its convergence with Web 2.0, television and movies. Even if you hate EA, it's hard to disagree with their vision of the future: one in which games become more episodic, and feature more external community-driven interaction, as featured in The Sims, and the upcoming Spore.
One of the panel discussions featured at the show was "How to be a Professional Video Gamer," something I'm sure every Joystiq reader would be interested in. The PMS Clan spoke about the long hours of training each member must go through in order to win tournaments. Gaming is considered a sport to these people, and GGL is working hard on making video games an official part of the Olympics in China.
One of the many competitions that took place on the show floor. Simply blinking would cost these players victory.
Microsoft had a really awesome Xbox 360 booth, featuring new and upcoming Xbox Live Arcade games.
::cue dramatic music::
The cool thing about booth babes at DigitalLife is that they have a good chance of being robots. Hot.
Take a bite out of cyber crime!
Xbox tries to help you protect your children by not having the-clearly-made-by-Satan Bully on any of their platforms.
OH NO! I think I read an erotic fanfic that started just like this!!!
Konami tries to explain its houseware arrangement simulator, Elebits.
FIRST!!!1 You do NOT want to know how I got this award.
The Xbox 360 HD-DVD player was on display. That thing is ginormous. It's almost as big as the 360's power brick.
Milky from 1UP was part of a panel that declared the winner of the holiday season. They picked Xbox 360 and Gears of War. They were obviously wrong:
Fin.
