Next Generation is reporting a bombshell of a news story: The massive yearly industry event E3 "in its present form" has been cancelled for the next year and for the forseeable future. According to Next Gen, several of the major exhibitors have jointly decided the cost of putting on the show each year is no longer worth the result, which is basically just media exposure. I suppose when you can deliver your message via the Internet to everyone you could ever want to touch, there's less of a point to one big event. And indeed, publishers are said to have decided their multi-million dollar expo budgets would be better spent on shows of their own or other promotions. Without the big guns, it's felt there's little reason in continuing the show.

ESA president Doug Lowenstein will likely announce the news some time within the next 48 hours, possibly on Monday. It's possible that the ESA will seek to limit the damage by organizing some form of lesser event in May, but it's clear that the days of an industry event attended by all the major publishers, spending big money, are gone.

It seems a little.. extreme to me to dump the whole program rather than just cut back the skyrocketing expenditures. Gamespot is reporting a slightly less sensational story about E3 "downsizing", replacing the current carnival of consumerism with a smaller, more professional affair:

Sources said that rather than fill the 540,000 square feet of the cavernous LACC, the show will take place at a location that would support exhibitors in meeting room space only, with companies showing their wares to a select group of attendees numbering in the hundreds rather than thousands.

The two reports seem disparate at first, but they do report mostly the same facts. The larger publishers will most likely leave or at least reduce their presence, and the event as a whole will become smaller and more focused. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out in terms of what each individual company will do in terms of promotions now. Will the Tokyo Game Show take on new importance? Will Nintendo start holding a SpaceWorld every year? Will Microsoft move more of their big announcements to their yearly X0 show?

In any event, let's all pour one out for our long lost E3. We had some good times, and some retardedly outlandish and garish times. Personally, I hope the pre-E3 press briefings still remain in whatever new form the show takes. It was a pain having to wait for two months before the event with no news because everyone was "saving up" for E3, but the following sudden overload of announcements, new games, and first looks was worth it.