Countdown to the E3 announcements by remembering the embarrassing moments of E3s past
We’re now only hours away from the first major press conference of E3. At 5:30pm UK time, Microsoft will kick off the gaming calendar’s biggest event by revealing what it has coming up for the next year. But whilst we wait, let’s remember the horrors of yesteryear.
Tech industry presentations are never that great: by necessity it involves putting hideous business executives and nerds lacking social skills on stage as presenters, and invariably the results aren’t exactly Tony Stark…
In fact, these press conferences have become pretty infamous – with gamers mashing up the most awkward E3 moments.
Here’s 2013 (surprisingly, it isn’t just a clip of Microsoft’s Xbox One announcement disaster):
…and here’s 2012:
Perhaps the high watermark for awkwardness though came way back in 2006, when Sony unveiled the PS3 – an even with which the phrase “Giant Enemy Crabs” became synonymous:
Games companies aren’t the only ones plagued by horrible press conferences though – you may remember a few years ago when Michael Bay walked off stage during a major Samsung event:
My own favourite horrible moment was basically all of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 announcement. For some reason, the company thought that it would be a good idea to rent out a broadway theatre and get musical actors to play out “scenes” in which the new phone would enhance their lives. It. Was. Horrible. You can watch the full horror here:
Needless to say, it wasn’t a stunt they repeated for the S5 reveal.
Perhaps the all-time tech conference horror though belongs to this social media marketing conference. They got some poor woman to sing with the key refrain “Let’s get social… with social media”.
If you can make it to 3:50 it, unbelievably, gets even worse when the middle aged man who introduces it starts rapping with a backwards cap. It genuinely makes me feel ill to watch it.
So c’mon Microsoft, Sony, et al – hopefully you can do better this year. The bar has been set very, very low.
