Although Microsoft's XBox booth wasn't as large as Nintendo's or Sony's, a good number of XBox titles were on display. This booth also had an upper floor, reserved for the privileged media and other guests who were invited upstairs.

Shot of the XBox logo adorning the exterior of Microsoft's booth. I couldn't even hazard a guess as to why "Video Game Systems" is presented in English and French. It's not like the show's being held in Quebec!

This was taken in the corridor that connects the South and West exhibition halls. Just an example of how prevalent XBox marketing was at the show.

Halo is one of the XBox's launch titles (so they hope) and it was prominently displayed in Microsoft's booth. It was fairly playable, although obviously not complete in terms of gameplay and performance. Still, it was nice to get some hands-on time with the game, just to prove that there is more to Halo than the ability to produce slick promo videos.

I believe this is the unnamed character you play in the Halo universe.

Taken from inside Microsoft's XBox booth, these are two of the characters from the upcoming Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee title.

This year, Nintendo and Sony had the largest booths, but in my opinion the Nintendo booth was the best presented of the two. Here you can see a shot from the outside, with the entrance to the booth's interior on the right. The inside of this large area was devoted entirely to displaying Game Cube titles. Unfortunately, this booth also proved to be extremely popular and was almost impossible to move about in. Nintendo stole Microsoft's thunder at this year's E3, as just about everyone I've spoken with was more impressed with Nintendo's Game Cube offerings when compared to the titles Microsoft was ponying up for their XBox.

Shots from the inside of Nintendo's Game Cube "room". The large video display was accented by lasers that were in sync with the video, giving an impressive effect. All around the outside perimeter of this area were various stations you could play Game Cube games. Each game also had a closed-off demo booth that would hold around 15 people, allowing you to actually hear the game you're trying to play. It's easy to see from the pictures how crowded this booth was!

Another shot of the Nintendo booth, from the outside.

Here's a shot of the Nintendo booth taken from the Gameboy Advance area, looking over the private area reserved for meetings.

I don't think Nintendo will be selling this version of the Gameboy Advance any time soon. The display was working, but to my disappointment the controls didn't.

To everyone's surprise, not only was Sega's booth fairly small this year (okay, that wasn't much of a surprise), it was also closed off to the masses. Only members of the media and invited guests were allowed entry into their booth. You can bet that next year I'll be sporting a Media badge so I won't be denied entry again.

Sony had a very large booth this year, comparable in size to Nintendo's. Unlike Nintendo, Sony wasn't showing any new hardware so the emphasis was entirely on new Games. While most of the effort was focused (naturally) on the Playstation 2, several Playstation games also received floor space The large globe in this picture was displaying video in 360, projected from the interior.

Sony announced a deal with AOL where the AOL service will be available on the Playstation 2. In addition, Sony also announced a Broadband adapter for the Playstation 2 that will launch later in the year. It was quite strange seeing Netscape running on a PS2, complete with a black keyboard, mouse and LCD monitor. You'd never know you were running on a PS2 unless you followed the cables back to the source.

More random shots of the Sony booth.

These two shots were taken from an elevated area in Sony's booth.

People were lined up to play Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec on the Playstation 2, the long-awaited sequel to Gran Turismo 2. Sony set up nice racing seats, complete with Logitech's Gran Turismo force-feedback steering wheel and gas/brake pedals. Due to the long lines (and my impatience) I wasn't able to give GT3 a shot in Sony's booth, but to my pleasant surprise Logitech had a similar setup in their booth and it wasn't nearly as crowded.

Yes, there is a Harry Potter game coming out for the PS2, tied strongly to the movie of the same name, apparently (in EA's booth they were showing the movie trailer as well as the game).

You couldn't get away from Metal Gear Solid at this year's show. It was being displayed (most prominently) in Konami's booth, Sony's booth, and (much to Sony's chagrin we're sure), Microsoft's XBox booth.