E3 Day 2

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The second day of my visit to E3 2004 started in the afternoon. I had a taste of the action on day one, and I couldn’t wait to try out the games in the other major hall, the West Hall, where the console and accessories were king. In the West Hall, Nintendo and Sony displayed the largest exhibitions. Today, I was able to bring along a tripod, so, rest assured, the abundance of photos will not even be slightly blurry. Read on to view our flurry of photos from the event floor and also some hands-on game overviews.

Nyko peripherals

In the west hall, one booth captured my attention, as it had a bright yellow Scion xB with wide rims and decals. Also, on the dash was an LCD screen with Gran Turismo loaded on it. I talked to a Nyko representative, and he explained to me what they are adding to the new product line this coming year. If you’re not familiar with Nyko products, they produce console gaming accessories such as controllers, memory cards and carry cases. They even have one PC optical mouse that had the Air-Flo system, which means that there is a fan pushing cold air on your palms.

I tried the Air-Flo game pads in my hands, and it felt soothing to have cool air flow out of the rubber vents in the grips. I can imagine that gaming with these pads would be far less clammy indeed. Nyko also has the Air-Flo wireless controllers. Most of these have a fan speed adjuster, so you can choose to save battery power by turning down the speed. The 2.4Ghz frequency controllers let you connect up to eight other pads within a range of 50-feet of the console, which is much better than their infra-red counterparts.

Another product they are touting is the boom microphone and loudspeaker add-on you can add to virtually any Xbox controller. This basically untangles your head while playing Xbox live games, and also allows other players (and sleeping babies) in the room to hear the conversation. This is great if you are one of those people who dislike wearing the headset while playing games.