Can you believe it’s been over 20 years since Sony’s infamous E3 2006 press conference? It was a low point for the brand which made PS3’s first few years particularly tricky for the platform holder to navigate.
The younger among you may not be familiar with the E3 press conferences of old, which were not the polished stage shows we’d come to expect a decade later – and certainly nothing like the trailer montages of a modern State of Play.
These were actual press conferences, with sales data, graphs, and business updates. While they were broadcast online, only the most hardcore were watching in those days.
But enough people tuned in to E3 2006 to get the memo: PS3 was in big trouble against the Xbox 360 and Wii, and Sony had lost its way.
Here are just some of the memes that still circulate today:
Five-Hundred-and-Ninety-Nine-US-Dollars
For almost two decades, the PS3’s $599 price point was considered peak hubris; in 2026, with soaring component costs, it doesn’t really have the same impact anymore.
But we only need to turn to an inflation calculator to understand just how crazy Sony was: $599 works out at around $1,000 today.
While there’s plenty of consternation around how much the PS6 may cost when (if?) it launches in 2027, we doubt PlayStation would be crazy enough to hit four figures.
Ridddge Racerrr
This one’s funny, but in hindsight, it’s actually a reminder of the PlayStation we’ve lost.
CEO Kaz Hirai may have been cringey and awkward, but he knew the products, and so when he introduced Namco’s legendary PS1 game Ridge Racer running on a PSP, at least he had fun with it.
Of course him screaming out the name like the announcer from the game has been clipped up for the past 20 years, but y’know what, we prefer it to this era of out-of-touch PlayStation executives who hide in boardrooms and rarely ever raise their heads above the parapets.
The SIXAXIS Sucked
God, the SIXAXIS was crap.
To be honest, the DualShock 3 wasn’t much better, but at least it had a little weight to it once Sony reintroduced rumble. (It was locked up in a lawsuit at the time over patent infringement, which meant the SIXAXIS originally launched without the feature.)
This was peak Wii era, of course, and Sony needed to prove it was still part of the conversation.
But Warhawk played like ass with the pad’s prehistoric gyroscopes, and while we’re happy the feature has improved and become more of a standard in the DualSense, we could have done without this gimmicky era of motion controller gameplay.
Giant Enemy Crabs
Genji: Days of the Blade was such a middling, forgettable game that its lasting legacy probably is “giant enemy crabs”.
To be honest, this was the point of the press conference where everyone had already turned on Sony anyway, so everything was getting clowned on by this stage.
But peddling realistic historical battles only to segue into giant enemy crabs – iconic.
“You hit its weak point for massive damage.” Just like in real-life.
