FAO: Anybody interested in the ECTS this year.

[Devilbod]

Spud said this in another thread about the Nintendo DS :

hopefully they will be @ ECTS so i can have a go there

Now I've been following this in the press and thought I should warn a few peeps who might be planning to go.

The chances are that Nintendo won't be at the ECTS this year along with a few others...
There is another show (Trade and Expo) going on on the other side of London the same five days as the ECTS called EGN (European Gamers Network) the trouble is the EGN is running the Game Stars Live thingy that's being aired on ITV....

It's caused a bit of a stir and a bit of slagging off between the two parties (ETCS & EGN) becuase it's a bit silly holding both events at the same time in different places, apparently the ECTS and the EGN wouldn't budge and so now both are on....

Now the ECTS is trade only event. Free to trade persons but they charge a fair old bit for people that want to exhibit stuff (Around £400 per square metre).
The EGN is open to the public and is a ticket event (I think it's £10) and also charges a fair bit less for the people who want to have a exhibit(costs £100 per square metre), but is more like the PS2 Expo in a lot of ways even though it still has the developers area.

Now the thing is the EGN has managed to get Nintendo, EA, Electronic Arts, Activision, Atari, Eidos and Vivendi Universal and Nintendo will be showing off the DS as well as a host of GC games...
And the only peeps that the ECTS has got are (at the moment) M$ development and Nvidia, before you think that M$ Dev is the X-Box it is not, it's the Directx team.

Now the other things that happened the at the same time as the ECTS the last couple of years are the GDC and the PS2 Expo.
The GDC is the Games Development Conference and has all the big names in games design going to give talks on the games industry but this is a little out of our league at I think about £300-£400 a ticket. The thing is it was always held at the same time as the ECTS so I suppose it had a little rubbing off with some of the top chaps doing stuff at the ECTS.
This year it's the week before...
Now the PS2 Expo and the chaps at Sony have done their thing next door to the ECTS for the last couple of years, but they are keeping quiet. So far there is no Expo planned this year.

So at the moment everyone is waiting to see which way Sony goes, becuase they have the PSP to show off and that will draw the big crowds the other interesting peeps to watch is ATI with Valve because they have new cards to show off as well.
I'm honestly seeing which way this goes but it's not looking good for the ECTS, the ECTS has been getting smaller and smaller over the last couple years and I don't think last years was very good, but that was down to there not being much to show off. Over the next couple of years there are going to be new consoles flying about and so things were looking up, but now this EGN event has poped up, is cheaper to exhibit at and has a good chance that you'll get a plug on the telly. Last, nail, coffin, and sledge hammer spring to mind.

Anyway heres the where I got all this from:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content...e=pub&aid=3414
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content...e=dev&aid=3226
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content...e=pub&aid=2598

[spazman]

Might go just to see the nintendo DS, where in London?

[Devilbod]

This is the webby for it : http://www.gamestarslive.co.uk/