Nintendo, too, had spokesmodels, albeit in far more tasteful and modest get-ups. But it wasn't their attractive smiles that had droves of people packing the Big N's booth.

There, the main draw was the hardware on display. There was a wall of Wiis running the Punch-Out! and several other games.

More importantly, visitors could hold, touch, and play the DSi handheld, which his US stores on April 5.

All the DSis--which were literally attached to either a table or the wrist of a spokesmodel--were running the camera-enabled party game WarioWare: Snapped. Despite the humiliation suffered by a demonstrator during Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's keynote address…

…One unlucky GameSpot correspondent had to try it himself. The results were no less embarrassing:

Across the aisle was Sony's booth, which had a row PlayStation 3s playing currently available games like Little Big Planet.

The line of PSPs featured several unreleased games, including Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, due out later this year. Towards the rear, Sony was showing off a technical demo of Phyre Engine, the new free middleware the company is giving out to help promote PS3 development.