Sadly this year the lack of booth babes and adolescent fanboys isn't the only reason things are quiet though. Over the last few years most of the big name publishers have vanished, retreating into private meeting rooms one by one before departing entirely. Electronic Arts, Activision, Infogrames, Sega and former booth kings Eidos are all amongst the regular absentees now, and this year they are joined by the likes of Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Virgin and Take 2. Meanwhile companies such as Capcom and Codemasters have disappeared into private hospitality suites targeted at retail buyers, ignoring the press entirely. [snip]

Damn, I always wanted to head out to ECTS. Not so much anymore though I guess. We can also expect Blizzard to make official the World of Warcraft announcement. The Diabloii.net guys confirmed that they were asked by Blizzard to keep a lid on it for a while too btw.