E3 2006

E3 2006 was a convention/exposition held on May 10 through May 12, 2006 in Los Angeles, CA. As usual, E3 is the biggest gaming news event of the year, where many companies roll out the big news and debuts. It is possibly the last of its kind, since it was later announced that E3 would be scaled back greatly, into a less expensive and truly "press-only" event.

The biggest attraction at the event was Nintendo's next generation offering, Wii, which featured the longest line on all days. It was reportedly up to a 4 hour wait.

Notable games

 * The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess
 * Final Fantasy XIII
 * Super Smash Bros. Brawl
 * Metal Gear Solid 4
 * Mass Effect
 * Gears of War
 * BioShock

Controversy

 * Sony's announced price, $600 USD for the full system and $500 for the scaled back version, was seen as unexpected and too expensive.
 * Nintendo refused to announce a price or date.
 * Grand Theft Auto IV was announced for the Xbox 360, breaking the exclusivity the Sony consoles normally got. It was unknown whether this meant it was not Xbox 360 exclusive, or coming out on both consoles at the same time.
 * The Wii units were actually not really Wii units - all demos were running off of GameCubes.
 * Killzone 2, which made a large impact with its trailer last E3, was noticeably absent in any shape or form.
 * Sony implements gyroscopic sensors (reportedly at the last minute according to WarHawk developers), in what some are calling a blatant reactionary move to the Wii motion sensing controller. To make matters worse, Sony proclaimed that they had removed the force feedback (rumbling & vibration) from their controller, deeming it "last generation technology."