How G4 TV ruined the live E3 coverage on TV

G4TV ruined E3! They said that this year was the first year of E3 live coverage on TV. I was pumped to be able to watch on my TV. For the past 2 years I have been watching on sites like GameSpot.com, which really wasn’t all that bad. Unfortunately for everyone that watched live on TV, G4TV was doing the coverage.

Four times in the middle of a live keynote they go into 4-5 minute commercials. What?!?! We missed 95% of the BioShock demo video, great job guys! How about no commercials when you are “covering” a live keynote event? But it gets worse! At the very end of the show, Microsoft/Bungie start showing off a kick ass Halo 3 video. Everyone has been waiting for this. It’s from the campaign.

Around the middle of the video, they cut from the live video feed into a camera shot of the huge screen that everyone attending the event is watching on. They start to pan out and some douche starts talking over the trailer. What the fuck!! You can hear someone telling him to shut up in the background.. and that’s it. They cut straight to a commercial, never showing the ending of the Halo 3 campaign trailer.

Holy shit! If I had known I would have watched online, or read a blog.

Don’t bother watching the G4 TV coverage of Nintendo’s and Sony’s keynotes on TV in the afternoon. Save yourself the frustration and watch online, or just read the blogs and wait for the videos to be released.

Hopefully next year someone more responsible will be able to cover this event. It’s quite obvious G4TV was not prepared. If your cable/satellite provider doesn’t offer G4TV, consider yourself lucky.

Update:

Here is the video - Watch as G4TV ruins the Halo 3 video:

Rumor: E3 Dead?

UPDATE:
Sources close to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) tell Ars Technica that the show can and will go on, but that big changes are planned. The “Electronic Entertainment Expo” (hence E3) started in 1995 as a small but interesting annual convention for gaming, following roughly six months after the once-popular annual COMDEX computer trade-show in Las Vegas. The show has grown immensely in popularity, and that appears to be the problem. Source

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) shindig has been a staple of game industry life since the mid-1990s. However, we understand the larger exhibitors have jointly decided that the costs of the event do not justify the returns, generally measured in media exposure.

Source

Even if the costs are not coorelating to the media exposure, E3 still needs to go on. The event is the epitome of video games and truly provides the real fans some entertainment. All of the rumors and speculation will be sorely missed, and it is a shame that no company will step up and make sure that E3 can live. This is not a done deal, but sadly it looks like E3 will be cancelled forever.