Brandon Bales's blog

Thanks for coming back. This is the sad end to another year at the Biggest Show in Downtown Los Angeles in June. Ha. Ah, seriously, I was sad to see another one go.

How about some delicious Day Two?  (SPOILER: Still no Vita.)

So, I went to E3 2011 Day One today! I am just a person. Here is what there is to report.

While we all wait for the promised marvel of 3D gaming to go mainstream and infiltrate our eyespace, the fine, fine folks of AMD have cooked up something to tide us over. It's the EyeFinity system for your PC (obviously), and it's shaped up to be a pretty robust marvel. On a recent trip to Austin, Texas, I was invited to the AMD campus to check out some of their new technology and products, and I was impressed with their dedication to this new system.

That elusive, Sasquatch-like gargantuan has slipped into the woods once more. Yes, despite its immense size and broad scope, all three days of E3 managed to disappear without warning. Somehow, somehow, the darn beast got away from me with some of its treasures locked away; with some of its stones left unturned... Ah well, now that it's over, I've something to look forward to—next year's show.

No one wants to be outdone in life, so it would seem that keeping up with the Joneses will never go out of style.  A perfect example? The PlayStation Move. Since its announcement, the Move has never seemed more than a "me too" device to compete with Nintendo's massive Wii marketshare.  The official word, of course, has always been "Just you wait, Joe Gamer."  Well, now's its time to shine­—it’s time to put it all out on the line.

Every year I attend the behemoth celebration of digital entertainment and culture, and I just can't process the massive, public scale of this thing. The towering screens and throngs of people tell me that this is a business like any other—one that's loved by millions of people, and one that makes millions of dollars. Games are more popular and more prevalent than ever—without question. If that's the case, and it is, then it's ironic that it's always felt like such a solo endeavor for me over the years.