The show hasn't even technically begun yet - the doors to the LA Convention Centre don't open until later today - but June 10 is a day gamers are going to remember for a very, very long time. And for all the right reasons.
This time last year, I was as down on the show as you could possibly be. Yes, I know it's most useful as a trade show (for retailers, etc), and yes, I know I'm getting older, but still. E3 was once a magical time for video game fans, and over the last decade, those times have gotten less and less magical.
Things got so bad last year that I wondered whether it wouldn't have better to do away with the show altogether.
My bad.
Today brought the magic back. There were big announcements. Surprise announcements. Crowd-pleasing announcements. Corporate-sparring. It had everything.
Mirror's Edge 2? Seriously? A new Battlefront game? For real? Ubisoft showing off another brand new game completely out of nowhere? The return of Final Fantasy Versus XIII? The PS4 targeting Microsoft's weak spot for massive damage? What planet are we living on?
For years E3's had been a boring, confusing mess, punctuated with presentations full of non-gaming fluff and a lack of big, new game reveals. This? This had been some kind of game fan's dream come to life.
In many years past, any one of those announcements above would have carried the show. Yesterday, they simply formed part of a flood of good news, one that washed over those keen enough to be watching at home and who could be forgiven for thinking they'd travelled back in time to 2004, to an era when E3 was all about games, not TV deals and fitness programs.
The show could have ended today and people would have called it one of the all-time greats. Yet there's more to come! Nintendo might be skipping a traditional press conference, but they still have new stuff to show, and who knows, it might be big enough to keep the good times rolling well into tomorrow.
Fingers crossed.