We take a look at this year's E3 Media and Business Summit, including rumors of a new Nintendo DS, colored Wii consoles, and a PlayStation Phone!

Coming home from Santa Monica and back to the Los Angeles Convention Center, the 2008 E3 Media and Business Summit will take place this July 15-17. Unfortunately for most of you starry-eyed readers, this year will retain the invite-only system and be booth babe free. Even more unfortunately, as the weeks progress it is looking to be a bit developer-free as well.

We are currently living in a day where most companies have stopped relying on the herding of journalists into a giant building, having to fight for attention with cheap trinkets, AKA the “schwag”. Nowadays developers hold their own “Gamers Day” events such as the three that have recently taken place, Microsoft’s, Konami’s, and Electronic Arts’.

There is however, the more venomous political side to it as well. Rumor has it that there is a strong dislike of ESA president, Michael Gallagher, which has caused a certain number of developers to skip the event and even become delisted from the ESA altogether. Then there is the simple fact that some developers simply do not have enough stuff in the upcoming catalog to merit making the trip. But alas, there will be an E3 2008 this year and there will be more than enough for the developers that are showing up to show off. So let’s get down to it.

If you have never been to an E3 summit before, you missed a somewhat great and embarrassing time. Up until last year, the summit was one big orgy of game developers, game journalists, random events, and of course the infamous booth babes. Centered inside the massive Los Angeles Convention Center, most journalists would be scrambling through enormous crowds to make their interviews, while the other journalists were talking up said booth babes in desperate, sometimes embarrassing attempts or grabbing some really good chow from one of the many food stops.

The gaming companies on the other hand were using the again said booth babes to grab a “desperate for contact” journalist’s attention. So yes, in a way they were “pimping” out their wares. Then the companies that weren’t using sex to sell, resorted to other means of attention whoring by creating a massive loss in dignity of the attendees who actually participated. Then things changed last year when the ESA moved the summit to Santa Monica, cut out the booth babes, Gamestop employees and countless media outlets by making the summit invitation only and strictly about business.

The only problem with the new summit was the location where they put it, in an airplane hanger. This caused all sorts of chaos for journalists who had to run back and forth through the city to make appointments all-the-while missing valuable hands-on time. Thankfully, this year the summit will retain the business-only rules, but this time back home in the L.A. Convention Center. It is rumored that the show will mainly be using the Concourse hall instead of the more spacious Western Hall.

We all know that Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are going to be attending but as mentioned above, some developers aren’t. Who won’t have stands this year may, or may not, surprise you. First reported by fellow site, Gaming Nexus, Activision will be one of the developers MIA. It was cited that Activision’s decision came from unannounced business reasons.

While they will hold a press conference the first night of the show, they won’t be participating in any official events. This means no demos of the highly anticipated Guitar Hero IV, which has a lot of us bummed out. NCsoft, publishers of many MMOs, will also not be attending due to timing issues with their catalog reported Joystiq . Gamespot also went ahead and confirmed that Foundation 9, parents to studios working on Silent Hill: Homecoming and Super Street Fighter HD II Turbo HD Remix would not be attending because they felt they didn’t receive much from the investment of attending.

Though a reason wasn’t given, Atlus stated they were ditto for a no show. Then there is the uncertainty that resides on whether or not iD Software is going to show. Kotaku posted they weren’t, Gamespot said they were, but co-owner Todd Hollenshead says they haven’t decided. If they do show, it would mean that PC gamers might get a tease of Doom 4. If not, well, too bad.

While the summit will be a little more barren then previous years, Tecmo and Electronic Arts have announced they will indeed be among the attendees. While details for both companies are light, Tecmo’s showing includes a new Dead or Alive game, Tecmo Bowl Kickoff, and Rygar: Battle of Argus. For EA, Jon Riccitiello already promised many of their sports game franchises will be shown off with new features as well as the Sims 3 and other franchises.