Asia Game Show 2006 Event Report: A Sad State of Gaming Affairs

The fifth annual Asia Game Show took place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center December 15-18, occupying one segment of the enormous site, located on reclaimed land off Victoria Harbor.

While the the venue was roughly equal in size to the main E3 hall at the LA Convention Center, in terms of content and value for gamers the AGS simply couldn't match any of the major world events.

Both E3 and the Tokyo Game Show built their reputation on flagrant showmanship and an OTT degree of exposure for as many gaming-related products as possible, but none of that held true with the AGS, as it was an unashamed front for Sony's efforts to promote the new PS3 console.

Essentially, the conference might well have been labelled the Sony Asia Games Show, and even then it would have been rather thin since apparently the new Playstation had too limited a range of titles at showtime.

There wasn't any formal Xbox, Microsoft, Nintendo or even PC gaming representation, reportedly something Sony was at least passively pleased with. A few glimpses of Xbox 360 machines were spotted, but the only one we actually approached was mysteriously malfunctioning.

The main event was for local consumers, as Sony Computer Entertainment used the venue as a glorified point of sale, dishing out new PS3's to lucky recipients from a backroom stack that appeared to number in the hundreds, with the line very orderly and in fact not that long by late afternoon. It was, however, pleasing to see people with smiles on their faces as they ventured out to engage in some advanced gaming at home. The euphoria of a gamer knows no bounds.

Sony also had several demonstrations and stages throughout their portion of the hall (more than half), with show babes delivering unconvincing speeches on the Cell processor and other PS3 highlights. There was further a significant amount of resources devoted to the PSP, which is struggling to ward off advances from Nintendo's DS/DS Lite.