ARTICLE

Inside the 2006 Montreal Game Summit

By Katie . November 9, 2006 . 4:27am

At 8-something we pushed through a small army of revolving doors and people called Pixman stations, who had LCD screens and controllers coming out of their backpacks, to the registration desks. I scored a grab bag whose contents I proceeded to document n photograph (which along with the others, will be uploaded when I’m on a real computer and not a hotel’s internet kiosk), but here’s a list to tide you over:

1 Nintendo Wii CD, absolutely not to be used in said console

1 Summit promo disc, which I’ll only get to watch once it’s over and I’m back in the company of technology,

1 Program, the all-important guide to living my next 2 days,

1 Reinforced, Playstation-endorsed, army-grade notekeeper, Some ads…

and 1 leaky Ubisoft canteen that water damaged them all. Piffle.

At 8:30, all alive and intelligent beings who paid up or got in for free like the talented yours truly attended the opening statements, made by AllianceNumeriQC’s chairman Remi Racine, which revealed that there should be about 900 people in the room alone. Outside, there was to be 70 expositors, from Japan, Singapore, Australia, here, there, and everywhere else. 4000 people in Quebec alone work in games. The ‘takeaway point’ here, as they would call it, is that it’s a big deal.

Wayne Clarkson of Telefilm Canada next took the podium to say there’s a Great Canadian Video Game Competition wth obscene prize money for the finalists & winners that will be in the same building as the MIGS, which brought my attention back a bit to my present finances…

Then, like a leather-jacketed young rebel, out came Keynote speaker Tetsuya Mizuguchi. But he doesn’t act like any James Dean… and tomorrow I’ll tell you why, along with some info on other conferences and happenings of the day (those being overwhelmingly Wii-related, might I add), and the takeaways Nintendo of America President Regie Fils-Aime’s own address! I’m getting good at this lingo.

Look for more happenings and what the speakers at the Montreal Game Summit coming tomorrow.