E3 2000 Report

Creative Labs had, as always, one of the biggest booths at the show. There were a few new items at the show, including their new Playstation 2 gear. Creative has two speaker offerings for the Playstation 2: one is the PlayWorks DTT2500, and the other is the PlayWorks PS2000. The DTT2500 is the same as the Desktop Theatre model, except it has an optical connector for the PSX 2. The PS2000 is a futuristic looking set of speakers that reminds me of the head of the robot in the movie Short Circuit. The PS2000 uses HRTF functions to simulate 5.1 surround sound out of a pair of speakers using dipole technology. They sounded very impressive for a two-speaker set.

Creative Labs' main focus was EAX and its use in more than just sound cards. Besides the PlayWorks gear, EAX is now in the Nomad Jukebox as well. With the touch of a button, EAX performs a very nice surround sound effect; great for that concert hall type of music. There weren't any tasty news of what's going to happen after the success of the Live! Series of cards; but there is going to be something else -- more will follow later this year.

Of course, another highlight was the upcoming Annihilator 2, which should be shipping in June. Creative does not currently have plans to release a 64MB version, but it sounds like they will test the waters and see what will happen with the market.

Conclusion
All in all, there wasn't much in the way of revolutionary news to report, only some small release date tidbits. Oh, and some very sore feet :). AMD and some others will have more news in the June timeframe, which we will, of course, report on. With that said, Comdex 2000 should be interesting. There is quite a bit happening in the industry around that timeframe.