NVIDIA Interview - "E3 Was a Disaster ... Nvision is the New E3"

Santa Clara (CA) - This week should be very exciting for PC gamers as Intel is publishing its Larrabee paper, detailing the upcoming x86-compatible cGPU, AMD is hosting its annual CTO Summit in Reykjavik (Iceland), while Nvidia is releasing its PhysX content pack.

We’re opening up the week with a two-part interview of Roy Taylor from Nvidia. Roy is the man behind Nvidia’s slogan of "The Way It’s Meant to Be Played" (TWIMTBP) and starts off with slamming the recently completed E3 games conference.

"It was a disaster," said Taylor of the new E3, which trades the glitzy show hall for individual private meeting rooms. "It is a benefit of having everyone being at the same place at the same time. But as an event, it was lousy. It was badly organized, badly managed... It’s just... it’s over. To me, I think that the event is over."

E3 2006 was the last time that the event held the title of being the biggest gaming trade show in the world. The ESA, the body behind E3, felt that the show had grown too large for its own good, and decided on a massively downscaled E3 for 2007.

"The original format ... was very big and it was hard work. But it was a real show, and it was a stage for you to present what is coming up in the next year. It was an important event. Today, you know... all they did is handed it out to Nvision," added Taylor, referring to Nvidia’s upcoming event.

"Nvision is the new E3 and you can quote me on that," he boldly added. "Old E3 was celebration of gaming, while this new E3 stopped being that. We feel that the time is right to offer gamers celebration of gaming once again."

Taylor may indeed be right that Nvision will be an exciting event for gamers, but only for the PC space. Nvidia and EVGA will be hosting that it calls the GeForce LAN, where "thousands of gamers from all over the world at this LAN party for three days of non-stop, adrenaline-pumping gaming" in hopes to set a new world record. Also at Nvision will be the 2008 Electronics Sports World Cup (ESWC), set to have more than 800 players compete for the podium.

While it’s almost certain that Nvision will be more attractive to the PC enthusiast, E3 still holds recognition amongst console gamers as being a special time in the industry.

Nvision is scheduled for August 25 to 27 and it appears Nvidia is basically taking over all of downtown San Jose with an exhibition hall, huge LAN party, theatre and keynotes. Look forward to coverage from the show here at Tom’s Hardware.