10 Of E3's Worst Video Game Showcases Yet

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is the closest thing to an actual gaming holiday. Once every year in the middle of June, every gaming company you could think of gathers in Los Angeles, California for a trade exhibition that's synonymous with grand reveals, huge stage shows, and countless booths all around, from giant developers to indie darlings.

But after 20 years of pizazz and style from all sides, there's been more than a few mishaps and empty bragging. All the flashy lights and celebrity appearances in the world can't help some announcements from just being totally naff.

Luckily, the internet never forgets anything. Especially not embarrassing moments like these.

I'm looking back at a cavalcade of E3's biggest announcements, some that were positioned as a bombshell. Most of them, however, ended up acting a little bit more like a skidmark on history. Here's my list...

The first E3 ever had Sega start by committing sales suicide, launching the Saturn months ahead of time to an empty line-up.

Caught in a bind between the recently released Sega 32x and the upcoming monster competitor Sony Playstation, the Saturn was a half-baked, underpowered console that Sega had to force out the door to the US market fast.

So they took to a shock marketing strategy. Spinning it as "attempts to appease international demand", the Saturn had a surprise launch the day of the conference at a whopping $399. While it definitely got the console out fast, it means that third party developers were left in the cold, giving the Saturn an empty library of only Sega's efforts and no marketing budget whatsoever.

Sony effectively blew Sega out of the water later in the same day by letting head of development Steve Race on stage, announcing the PlayStation's price at $299, and walking off. If the microphone wasn't attached to the podium, they would've dropped it.