Retro Moments - June 2003 E3 Edition

As June is E3 time instead of looking at the games which came out in 2003, we're looking at E3 that year instead.

Which saw:


Yep, the PSP was shown at E3 2003, which would be Sony's first go at a handheld console outside the PocketStation, the PSP went on to sell over 80m units.

Also from Sony was Gran Turismo 4, the first sequels of Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank as the big hitters plus EyeToy.

MS at the Xbox stage had Halo 2 and what would become Fable, which I remember Molyneux going on about trees.

Nintendo was focusing on the GBA as the SP was shown with Advance Wars 2, WarioWare, Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand, and Metroid: Zero Mission. But GameCube also got Mario Kart Double Dash.

Elsewhere DOOM 3, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Resident Evil 4 were shown it what now looks like a bit of a banger of an E3 but I guess we were a few years into the generation that big titles were coming.

And two games called Call of Duty and World of Warcraft never heard of them. One more thing it just wasn't Sony having a go at the handheld market as Nokia showed:

I cannot remember ever seeing an N-gage, nor hearing of anybody ever buying one.

I remember being unimpressed by the PSP. Perhaps not when it was announced, I never really followed E3, but certainly when one of my friends got his hands on one and showed off a WRC rally game. Perhaps spoiled by cart based handhelds to that point, I couldn't stomach the arduous load times, impressive though the visuals were for its time. He enjoyed the system though so what do I know?

The EyeToy, on the other hand, was something I went mad for. Still got the curious thing at my mum's house somewhere. There was something about having your own image on screen, and being able to "physically" interact with the game which captured the imagination. I guess I thought it was the future - which it was in a way because the Kinect later turned out to be a huge success

I remember really wanting an N-Gage due to the PS1 games on it and a new Sonic but I did decide not get one in the end till last year when I got one cheap made sure it worked and flogged back on for a small profit. I do however think if you look back at the library of games, it's actually rather good but because the system is shite and you've got better handhelds people ignore it.

PSP is an odd one as it's a system, I didn't buy at launch and I was impressed by Ridge Racer (I think) but I was like muh that's the best game but now I'll sing its praises all day as the library is utterly fantastic & the 2000/3000 versions of the system are top notch.

The Kinect what an odd thing like you say a huge success as I think it's something 15m sold yet put me right off the direction of Xbox and one of the things you could argue hindered the Xbox One this gen and was sort of a flop in the end.

I suppose the Eye Toy was never marketed to do anything more than it could. It very much did what it said on the tin; a novelty gadget that didn't break the bank (although it did take up a lot of memory card space).

The Kinect seemed to bill itself more as something capable of a lot but was never really much more than the Eye Toy in practice, it cost quite a bit too. Then there was the whole - it's always listening and watching - thing that gave people the willies.

That being said, I hope they don't give up on it. It's a very accessibility friendly bit of kit that works a treat for people with cognitive conditions that mean they can't deal with a bunch of control inputs. I mean, I feel like it could still have a place in that regard anyway - maybe their new accessibility friendly controller makes it redundant.

Production of the Kinect stopped some time ago but the writing was on the wall when it was taken out of Xbox One then the One S and X not having a Kinect connection.

But I saw the other day the tech was being used in something else.