Famous E3 fails: From Konami to Jamie Kennedy

With E3 now dead, here are some of the biggest disaster moments and conferences from across the decades


Published: June 10, 2018 11:00 AM /

By:


Tak Fujii can be seen with an image of E3's convention centre behind him

It’s an understatement to say that E3 often has a few issues. Nobody can have a perfect conference. Thankfully, most of the time it’s a simple flub of words and a presenter can move on. However, sometimes things can go vastly awry and you can end up with some famous E3 disasters that get put in the history books.

Between technical difficulties or just plain uninteresting content, there are many choices for this list from across the two and a half decades of shows. However, I’ve spent far too long researching to bring you the cream of the crop. Let's all laugh and reminisce as we look back at some of the biggest trainwrecks from the show.

Nintendo 2008: Wii Music

E3 2008 was not kind to Nintendo. It was a dull conference overall, but nobody could have predicted the finale. As the conference came to a close, a professional drummer named Ravi Drums busted out a headbanging drum solo with the Wii Remote, nunchuk, and Wii Fit Board.

This has become one of many famous memes from the show over the years.

Ravi Drums can be seen playing the drums with a Wii remote and nunchuck
Ravi Drums really broke a sweat with the energy he put into his Wii Music performance.

Following his performance, Bill Trinen and Shigeru Miyamoto made their token appearance as they did at every conference at the time.

They discuss the game a little, and for the most part, it’s just as dull as the rest of Nintendo’s 2008 conference. However, at the end, a nugget of pure failure capped off the whole Wii Music segment.

Bringing others on stage, Miyamoto and company attempt a rendition of the famous main theme from Super Mario Bros. using different instruments to form a band.

It’s so hard to put into words how awful it was, but a mixture of slightly out of tune instruments, and the silent dancing and instrument playing on stage is not what Nintendo fans were hoping for when they tuned into watch the show.

You can watch the full performance below from Miyamoto and co:

Activision, 2007: Jamie Kennedy

Activision for the most part didn't have an enormous presence at E3 throughout the years, with their games often appearing at Sony or Microsoft's conferences.

But, they did host their own conference in 2007 and they hired actor and comedian Jamie Kennedy to host, which seemed like a decent idea. Spoiler alert: It was not.

It should have played out like a fairly normal conference, with a few quips and jokes between reveals and interviews. Instead, Kennedy staggered onto the stage completely hammered, and it only got worse from there.

Throughout the painful conference, Jamie would spout random nonsense at times. Then, he’d insult the audience, calling them “virgins” and claiming that they “never get out of the house."

Jamie Kennedy can be seen standing awkwardly.
Jamie Kennedy's outbursts and random insults were remembered more than the games at this conference.

Worse still were some of the interviews. The people being interviewed were extremely professional about the situation. Unfortunately, Kennedy was not.

In one particularly satisfying moment, he’s interviewing a British developer and asks if he can do an interview as Ozzy Osbourne. Without skipping a beat, the developer calls out his drunken antics with “Absolutely! ...Aren’t you doing that already?” 

The audience gave him a ton of laughs and the whole conference was a shambles, but not the messiest situation Activision have found themselves in.

Ubisoft, 2011: Mr. Caffeine

Not to be outdone by Mr. Kennedy, Ubisoft hired Aaron Priceman to host their press conference in 2011. This was a special conference, as it marked the 25th anniversary of Ubisoft.

Priceman, who went by Mr. Caffeine onstage, was certainly energetic! True to his name, he was always pumped to show off games. The problem was that despite his zany demeanor, his jokes often fell flat.

In his attempt to get the audience excited, Mr. Caffeine belted out some very strange quips.

These include “Poop on your toothpaste” and admitting that he’s “not afraid of a few dick jokes” after a joke flopped about holding his “joy-wand."

Aaron Priceman can be seen standing waving his hands
Aaron Priceman's "Mr. Caffeine" moment was one of the strangest hosting experiences in an E3 conference.

To celebrate 25 years of Ubisoft, Mr. Caffeine showed what games would look like in the past. However, he did this in a very strange way.

Taking a cue from Wayne’s World, Mr. Caffeine catapulted himself to meme status by imitating the “doodley doodley doo” sound and waving his hands to signify going back in time.

He did it ad nauseam, making everyone cringe each time.

Top this off by constantly mispronouncing Tom Clancy as “Tom Cuh-lancy”, and you’ve got one very ugly conference.

Microsoft, 2010: The Kinect Reveal

After the massive success of the Wii in 2006, motion controls became the new hot commodity at the end of the decade.

Both Sony and Microsoft felt they had to get in on the motion control craze. The same year, both companies introduced their own devices. In Sony’s case, the PlayStation Move seemed to be little more than a knockoff Wii Remote.

Microsoft, on the other hand, had a different plan to capture the motion control market - a camera that let your body be the controller.

The Kinect as it was called promised to use your entire body as a controller and used a camera mounted in front of your TV to track your motion.

Surely some games could make great use of this, right? Well … no. Once it was revealed, Microsoft rolled out demo after demo of underwhelming minigames and cheap attempts to copy Wii Sports.

Two players can be seen on a raft down a river in Kinect Adventures
Kinect Adventures was one of the better experiences, but it was shallower than the water in the river you were on.

A particularly egregious example was Kinectimals, where a child actor had to pretend to do tricks and be best friends with a virtual tiger cub.

All in all, the Kinect reveal was an incredibly botched attempt at copying the Wii’s success and Microsoft even tried to push the device a second time with the launch of the Xbox One in 2013. That also didn't go well.

Sony, 2006: The Entire Show

Few conferences are referenced as much as Sony’s in 2006. The whole presentation was a terrible affair from start to finish.

Everyone expected and wanted more news on the PlayStation 3 since its reveal at the past E3. Thankfully, everyone got exactly what they wanted!

Sony was eager to show off their hot new console, including the price and release date. In addition, they wanted to show the most important thing: more games.

But, the reveals and the announcements about the price, weren't quite as positive as many hoped.

The Sony 2006 conference has loads of classic moments. These include the awkward “It’s Ridge Racer! Riiiidge Racer!” phrase or the infamous “599 US dollars!” Because, that was how much the console cost.

Ken Kutaragi can be seen with a PS3
This conference set the stage for a terrible generation for Sony, before they gained the lead again with the PS4.

This is also the birthplace of the Giant Enemy Crab meme. When discussing Genji 2: Days of the Blade onstage during a demo, the developer makes mention that you’re going through historical battles that really happened.

Within seconds of this declaration, the demo begins and we see a battle start with an enormous crab several times larger than any person, which definitely did not happen. 

Combined with some lackluster tech showcases and a few decent showings, this is perhaps the most infamous conference in all of E3. The pinnacle of awkwardness.

Konami, 2010: Every Announcement, Every Presentation, Every Speaker

Despite some pretty colossal disasters, nobody can top the absolutely bonkers conference held by Konami in 2010.

Where Sony’s conference in 2006 was awkward, Konami’s 2010 outing reigns as the king of insanity and delusion.

For nearly two hours, madness ensues onstage that is, to be honest, hard to describe and has to be seen to be believed.

You know it's going well when right out of the gate, you have an announcement for a game where the trailer simply won't play, so they move on immediately to the next reveal without saying a word.

Tak Fujii then comes onstage to announce and discuss Nintey-Nine Nights II and creates a very awkward silence as he takes a moment to force more applause for the game. He whispers promises of an “extreeeeme! Extreeeeeeme! Hack-n-slash title” and claims that if you just randomly press buttons instead of learning combos, “you’ll be sucked.”

He also says the game will contain "One million troops. One million troopsWoooow!"

Tak Fujii can be seen standing on a podium, grinning.
Fujii's showing was just the start of a bonkers conference from Konami.

There was also the vexing announcement of Lucha Libre: Héroes del Ring. Three luchadores saunter up on stage along with the presenter, and their acting is …questionable.

In an attempt to drum up excitement, they start slapping each others’ chest to “start a fight." The presenter steps in to stop them, telling them to “save it for the ring!” before they all walk offstage. 

Another highlight is when Naoki Maeda shows up to announce Dance Masters. He and his co-presenter spend lots of time completely feigning excitement while staring at the teleprompter.

They sound more like an infomercial than an actual conference. When the time comes to demo the game, things get even worse.

Both are clearly energetic about the experience and get very into the dance.

Naoki Maeda and his translater can be seen dancing on stage
Dance games don't exactly demo well. Unless, you hold a performance with a pop star like Ubisoft has done for Just Dance.

The issue is that the song they dance to is your average J-pop track. Now, this isn’t bad in and of itself.

What makes it bad is that the dance they have to do involves all sorts of oddly “cute” dance moves you expect from idols in Japan, not 30+-year-old men.

Hey, far be it from me to criticize what people dance to, but at least try to play to your audience a little better - which was a bunch of American journalists exhausted after running around the convention centre to get to their next appointment.

Yet another strange moment was the reveal of NeverDead. The central mechanic of the game is that you are, indeed, never dead.

You can get decapitated but you have to roll your head to your body to reattach it. This was demonstrated with some cheap magic tricks onstage to very little applause heightening the awkwardness even more.

There’s a reason Konami never did another E3 press conference. 2010's was an unmitigated disaster.

The entirety of the presentation was a complete trainwreck … and I highly recommend you watch it. It’s absolutely unreal and an entertaining watch because of it.

Whether you just watch the highlights or you’re brave enough to watch the whole thing, it’s worth seeing. Just like any trainwreck, you cannot look away. It’s extreeeeeme. Extreeeeeme!

What are some of your favorite E3 disasters? Do you agree or disagree with our list? Or, are there some other disasters from conferences or the showfloor that you can never forget.

This post was originally published in 2018 as part of our Raptor 6 series. It's been republished to have better formatting, images, and structure.

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


Connor Foss
| Staff Writer

Former TechRaptor Staff Writer, who also does translation work between English and Spanish. You can usually find me playing horror games or Zelda!