The coordinators of the Entertainment for All Expo, or E for All have announced the first “flagship” exhibitor for the event: Nintendo of America.
Nintendo is the first company that IDG World Expo has announced a a “Flagship” exhibitor. George Harrison, Nintendo’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications, said in a statement that the event is a good fit for his company.
“Our Wii and Nintendo DS systems are all about gaming for the masses, and the E for All Expo will give consumers a chance to try out the hottest new Nintendo video games,” said Harrison.
In addition to having an expo area filled with computer and video game publishers and hardware makers, the event will feature video game tournaments, a job fair, and a “Video Games Live” concert.
The days of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) dominating the video and computer game market as a massive spectacle are behind us. This year, E3 will be replaced with a much smaller, invitation-only event to be held in Santa Monica, Calif.
E3 was always supposed to be an industry-only event, not open to the general public. But that didn’t stop tens of thousands of video game enthusiasts from descending on the Los Angeles Convention Center each May, each ponying up hundreds of dollars to score a badge to walk the show floor, seeing the latest and greatest video and computer games from every major vendor in the world.
After the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) decided to downscale the show following its 2006 event, IDG World Expo — the same company behind Macworld Conference & Expo — picked up the slack (with the ESA’s tacit approval), and announced that it would kick off E for All, specifically as a consumer event. The company hired many of the same people who made E3 a success to run the new show, which kicks off at the L.A. Convention Center from October 18 – 21, 2007.
IDG World Expo and Macworld publisher Mac Publishing are both business units of International Data Group (IDG).