The Video Game History Foundation has expanded its digital archive with a huge collection of classic E3 material, including never-before-seen items and videos from the trade show’s past.
The collection is available to anyone for free and includes more than 1,000 pages of promotional materials such as flyers, brochures, press kits, photos, videos, and more. There is lots of footage available, including the surprise launch of the Sega Saturn and Sony’s famous price announcement for the original PlayStation.
What’s most interesting for conservationists is that the videos also include high-quality pre-release footage of games such as Super Mario 64, Star Fox 64 and Crash Bandicoot: Warped, alongside Rare’s unreleased Conker’s Quest.
A lot of these materials were provided by Carolyn Rauch, who oversaw the planning and execution of E3 for much of its lifespan, whilst hours of footage from E3’s first four years were donated by developer Anthony Parisi.
You can even check out an interview with Carolyn Rauch, as well as another E3 founder, Doug Lowenstein, in the latest episode of The Video Game History Hour. The podcast discusses the show’s creation, its challenges and how it evolved over the years.
The entire collection can now be browsed online, and it is worth taking some time to go through this if you are a developer or want to learn more about the history of video games and how they were made.
