Amidst no great fanfare - there wasn't even a banner outside the hotel - the gates to E3 2007 have opened. I sneaked a look around the Fairmont Miramar Hotel, which is where Electronic Arts, Activision, Konami, Ubisoft and plenty of others will be holding press conferences on Wednesday afternoon.

In years past, these companies spent millions of dollars on fortress-like booths with banks of flat panel screens and deafening sound systems. Now they'll be holding forth in a ballroom that looks as though it might be cleared out to accommodate the Juergenson wedding party later that evening. The room has been split down the middle with a divider - press conferences take place on one side, the press room is on the other.

At the B4 cocktail party on Sunday (hosted by fortyseven communications) most people were saying that this stripped-down E3 vibe does not bode well for the future of the show. But most also agreed that there would be no going back to the carnival-like atmosphere of years past.

The lack of booth babes and blaring preview trailers competing for attention is going to be a major part of the E3 story this year, let's just hope that it doesn't come at the expense of the games. Lucky for you, Kotaku has a phalanx of writers en route to LA right now who are going to deliver every tantalizing morsel.