Were The "Winners" of E3 Enough To Ensure Survival?

Now that the industry is winding down after another E3, it's time to reflect on the relative success of the show. Paul Govan reflects with a GeekDad view of the "winners" of this years show. The question is, after the attempts to scale it back to a much more exclusive event, has E3 managed to escape obscurity and defeat at the hands of up-and-comers like PAX? Highlights of the show included Microsoft's new controller-less interface, a sexier PSP, and a myriad of releases from Nintendo.

Comments

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[Drakkenmensch]

From my personal view as someone who was not able to attend and was left with television and website coverage, 2009's edition was little more than 2008 with booth babes and more people in the background. Press conferences were lifeless as ever, with a few scant release announcement to cut the hum-drum of what looked like a stockholders quarterly fiscal meeting laced with flat corporate-approved jokes.

In short, can we have PAX yet?

There are more than a few "winners" at E3

[BaShildy]

All of us on the floor who were making deals, and making important contacts all won this year as opposed to last year where it was very difficult to meet everyone due to how spread out it was.

E3 in its current form is far more likely to succeed than its previous form. Booth babes and glam weren't the only things brought back this year. E3 was slowly becoming Gamestop-fest where more than 50% of the attendees were game players as opposed to game makers. The ratio was far better this year, with all of the infrastructure that was lacking in the E3 Santa Monica model.

PAX != E3

[pcgabe]

The question is, after the attempts to scale it back to a much more exclusive event has E3 managed to escape obscurity and defeat at the hands of up-and-comers like PAX?

E3 is about games.
PAX is about gamers.

They're fundamentally different, and not really in competition with each other. I'm not sure where the submitter even got this question; E3 battling obscurity isn't mentioned in the article, nor is PAX, nor other expos at all.