Here's a taste of what you can expect to see in this year's E3 Access. It's tough to squeeze highlights of 14hours into a 1minutue clip, but that didn't stop us from trying! Available at 320 x 240 & 640 x 480 resolutions in both QuickTime and Windows Media format (for his and her pleasure) we're sure this will whet even the driest of appetites. 

Apologies for the delay in posting this as we wanted to make sure we had the server capacity in place to ensure a speedy download for all. Now nested deep within the bowels of IGN's framework, we're set to let it loose!

[Check it out here]

E3 Access 2005 is out now and available from numerous online and retail locations around the world. Checkout the Where to Buy page for more information on where you can pick one up to call your own.

April 27, 2005
E3 Access 2005 starts shipping this week!

We're finished. That's right, FINISHED. The result? Over 14 hours of eye-searing game candy delivered to you fresh from the hottest gaming show in the world, the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

You want games? We got them. You want interviews? Got them too. You want NextGen system scoops? We've got you covered. How about interviews and developer walk-thrus? Yup. You want Babes? Frankly, we're concerned you needed to ask. E3 Access 2005 has anything and everything E3 - it's your ultimate ticket to seeing the show as a V-V-V-V-V-VIP.

So we've been doing this E3 DVD gig for a while now. We pioneered the genre. We're leading the pack. You'd think it would get easier with time, and it probably would if it weren't for that fact that we try to outdo ourselves each and every year by cramming in even more content & production value than the year before. Here are some of the features you can expect to see in this mammoth 4 DVD-9 set:

Complete uncut multi-camera press conference coverage from Microsoft, NIntendo & Sony.

Over 250 games covered across all formats including Xbox / Xbox 360, PS2 / PS3 / PSP, Gamecube / DS / GBA & PC.

Over 50 Developer play-by-play walk-thrus (our most popular feature) of the hottest titles.

Executive interviews from Peter Moore (Microsoft), Perrin Kaplan (Nintendo) & David Reeves (Sony) dishing out the goods on future company plans. 

More bonus content than ever before including an exclusive IGN Editor in Chief round table, the Making of E3 Access, a never before seen AFTER HOURS tour of E3 hosted by GameSpy's Dave 'Fargo' Kosak and IGN's Tal Blevins, the Namco Dancers (trust us, this is worth a mention), time-lapse footage of setup/breakdown, street vox-pops and a few extra surprises.

All new 3D menu system with comprehensive scene selection.

If you think you've seen it all already, you're in for a pleasant surprise. E3 Access 2005 will start to ship THIS WEEK. Stay tuned for a final trailer appearing later in the week and prepare for the ultimate E3 experience!

Checkout the where to buy page for details on your local retailer.

April 18, 2005
NGV return with the goods (booth babe teaser included!)

So the NextGenVideos team has made it home from E3 2005. We returned exhausted but happy. The body enters a most pleasant state when flooded with a combination of jaw-dropping next-generation hardware and slightly more jaw-dropping young ladies promoting said hardware. This year's show was without doubt, the most impressive to date. And those of you who couldn't make it can rest assured that we are putting together the most in-depth, jam-packed, exclusive-filled coverage of the show available.

We've received a huge number of emails asking what? when? and where? with regard to the DVD. Please forgive the lack of replies, but everyone on staff is currently working 20 hour days to ensure the DVD meets and exceeds the production standards we have set in previous years. So to answer the easy questions first; you can expect to see the DVD at retailers and online before the end of June. We are currently finalizing exactly which retailers but keep an eye on the where to buy page for up to date information on this side of things. As to the what ... well, the easiest way to answer that question is probably to give a brief run-down of the team's activities throughout the week.

Firstly, let me state, that we have heard our fans and we have responded. It seems that some of you (okay, the vast majority of you) while interested in the games, are also very, very, very interested in more coverage of the babes. Well, it was tough work, and we hated having to do it, but we understand that you have to take the good with the bad, and we have gathered more in-depth coverage of the babes of E3 than in any other year. I mean to tell you we have a *lot* of babe footage ... but more on that later.

Monday saw the team attending the Sony America Press Conference. Insanely powerful cell architecture, anyone? The conference was, surprisingly, completely focused on the PS3. Damn, that thing looks good! The bad news ... no official release date, so we all get to keep salivating and waiting ... the good news... NextGenVideos will be bringing you complete, uncut, coverage of the press conference so that you can sigh and swoon again and again in full DVD quality. The afternoon saw us rushing to the Microsoft Press Conference, which after a delayed start, smacked us over the head hard enough to blur our vision. The XBOX 360 is going to be the highlight of my year (and yes I am counting the birth of my first child in that reckoning). Of course, we will be including complete, uncut coverage of the Microsoft Press Conference as well so you can playback (in slo-mo) the very attractive young lady gliding across the (strangely angled but technically impressive) stage to place a 360 in front of the crowd. (oh and as a sidenote; yes we did get some of the limited edition E3 2005 XBOX 360 faceplates, and no, there is no amount of money that will make us part with them).

Tuesday morning saw the team up bright and early (well early at any rate) to attend the Nintendo Press Conference. In many ways, this was one of the most anticipated press conferences because of the big question mark over the Revolution (will they or won't they reveal?). Well, reveal they did, and impressive it is! A very sexy little machine with one key feature that I, for one, am extremely happy about! Redefining the notion of backwards compatibility, Nintendo have announced that the Revolution will be compatible ALL the way back. That's right, you will be able to download titles from as long ago as the NES days and play them on your revolution. Those of you old enough to care probably don't need much prompting to understand the value of this addition ... for the rest of you ... think of it as a chance to discover some stellar titles from the days when it was all about game play. (Once again, you can expect to see complete, multi-camera, uncut coverage of the press conference). Our afternoon was spent at Sony Europe's Press Briefing, where we managed to snag the developers of 24 and SOCOM 3 playing and discussing their beautiful creations. We also saw the eye-melting, insanely delicious PS3 demos once again (and they really do stand up to repeat viewing). All the footage is going straight to the DVD and I challenge anyone to watch this stuff without a) feeling excited, b) accidentally drooling on their coffee table, c) pledging their soul to any dark entities listening in return for a pre-release console, or d) all of the above.

Wednesday was the start of the show proper and the NextGenVideos team was onsite to hit it early and hit it hard. After a couple of key(?) interviews with the incredibly ugly men who were wearing the anti-booth babes shirts (lovely gentlemen, but guys, who are you kidding?) it was onto the show floor to let the madness begin. Trying to choose highlights across the 3 days of show is a hell of a lot harder than you might think. Quite frankly, in 3 days of non-stop shooting there was very little that didn't drop the jaw and get the fingers itchy. But on Wednesday, in a day filled with highlights, we got some great interviews with Peter Moore (Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Publishing for the XBOX) and Perrin Kaplan (Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Affairs for Nintendo). In terms of games, well where to begin ... keep an eye out for our coverage of Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks, our exclusive interview with Tony Hawk and some super sweet footage from Blitz - The League. Oh, and by the way, a proportion of the day was devoted to forcing ourselves to pick up some footage of the stunningly beautiful booth babes who scattered themselves across and around our path through the halls (not sure, if anyone is interested but there will be a fair bit of booth babe footage on the DVD set this year, just in case).

Thursday is perhaps best described as NextGenVideos NextGenConsole Coverage day. We got so much great footage of the next generation of games that the idea of a whole DVD devoted to next generation games has been raised (and then defeated). Everything we saw (and filmed) looked amazing... be sure to check out NBA 2K6, Amped 3, Call of Duty 2, Test Drive Unlimited, Madden NFL 06, Tomb Raider Legend, Quake 4 (oh my god Quake 4 looks yummy), The Darkness, Huxley, Demonik, Full Auto (i have honestly had dreams about Full Auto after seeing it) and Oblivion (just to name a few). And remember, for all the hottest titles the footage is accompanied by in-depth interviews and play by play commentary from the developers of the game. Why watch low quality, low resolution blurry game footage that looks like it was shot on a web-cam when E3 Access 2005 is about to deliver DVD quality sound and vision in which the people that made the games, play the games and tell you exactly why the games are so damn cool? (if anyone can come up with a good answer to that question, I'll give you my limited edition E3 2005 XBOX 360 faceplate as well as my first born child). Oh, and in a risky and unprecedented move, the director elected to have a portion of the camera crew devote a large part of their day to capturing the most beautiful booth babes so that you the viewer might have a chance to appreciate the work that goes into painting an outfit onto somebody or pouring a person into a very small piece of latex.

Friday was a lot like Wednesday and Thursday (back to back appointments covering the hottest titles at the show, spliced with incredibly distracting interludes with the stunning women who are the E3 booth babes) but with the intensity turned up rather high as the realization hits that there is less than 6 hours of show time left and a very large number of must-see titles still to be covered. But cover them we did. We gathered still more next generation console footage, a healthy serve of the best and brightest current generation games and still found time for an interview with the coolest man in video games, Itagaki-san (the creator of the Dead or Alive series) discussing Dead or Alive 4, and an intriguing spot with Kikuchi-san discussing Fatal Frame 3 and (for us) one of the surprise hits of the show, Trapt.

I could honestly go on for pages more about all the amazing titles we covered, but there is still a huge amount of work to do in order to get the DVD to market (oh wait, I will say this ... wait till you see the interview and coverage for Shadow of the Colossus ... truly pushing the current generation of hardware to the max). The long and the short of it is this ... 2005 was the biggest E3 ever and the NextGenVideos team was there to cover every aspect of the show. You can expect this years DVD set to be our most impressive yet and and if you didn't make it to the show, this is as close to being at the show as you can get - and then some (behind closed doors coverage of all the games and interviews with the hottest names in the industry are not necessarily a standard part of the E3 experience). I haven't really had time in this piece to mention that we got an incredibly large quantity of incredibly high quality booth babe footage this year, but working on the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words, below is a short teaser drawn from our booth babe footage for this year ... want so see more? you know where to find it!

E3 Access 2005 Booth Babe Teaser - 320x240 - 16MB
E3 Access 2005 Booth Babe Teaser - 640x480 - 39MB

April 18, 2005
NEW E³ Access 2005 TEASER ONLINE!

As the videogame industry continues to eclipse all other forms of entertainment with every year, this teaser is the embodiment of its success and captures the excitement & buzz of the Next Generation hardware to be shown at the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo this May. Prepare for the greatest E³ in history and take comfort in the knowledge that NextGen Videos will be there to cover every detail with the style and flair that only NGV can deliver!

We've provided three QuickTime formats for online viewing, plus an exclusive PSP version to view on the go. So stop reading this and check it out now!

April 18, 2005
NextGen Videos is proud to announce E³ Access 2005!

NextGen Videos in co-operation with the Entertainment Software Association and IGN GameSpy are proud to announce the next edition in the popular series of videogame expo coverage DVDs, E³ Access 2005!

Once again, NGV will produce a 4 DVD set covering what's sure to be the biggest E3 in the history of the industry! Covering all formats including Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, GBA SP, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP and of course PC, you won't miss a moment of the latest announcements and previews. The real stars of this year's show however, will be the Next Generation of consoles which will all be debuting in one form or another. Find out all there is to know about Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 3 and Nintendo's Revolution as we'll be there to cover every angle as only NGV can. You'll also see your favorite IGN GameSpy editors appearing on the DVD in specially produced segments to put you right in the thick of the action. See them as they fight, scream and cry, battling to meet online deadlines from the 'War Room' in one of many behind the scenes specials.

With over 14 hours of content packed full of developer & publisher interviews, developer play-by-play walk throughs of the biggest games, complete press conference coverage and more bonus features than you probably even care for (not to mention a few surprises!) this will be our biggest and best DVD ever, giving you the most concise and in-depth coverage of E3 2005 bar none.

As E3 approaches and beyond, we will endeavor to update the E³ Access 2005 Product Page with updated feature listings. Check it out now for even more details on this year's massive DVD set!

As always, remember to join our mailing list for the latest info and check out the updated list of places to buy and pre-order the DVD!